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Top Health-Care Reform Foe: Racist Emailer Is "Rock Solid Patriot"


Greg Scandlen, Heartland Institute

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A top conservative health-care reform foe is going to bat for David McKalip, the Florida neurosurgeon and anti-reform activist who this summer was caught by TPMmuckraker sending a racist email that showed President Obama as a witch doctor.

In an email to fellow activists, obtained by TPMmuckraker, Greg Scandlen, the founder and director of Consumers for Health Care Choices, and a senior fellow at the conservative Heartland Institute, called McKalip "one of the best men I know" and "a rock solid patriot." Scandlen also revealed that he himself had urged McKalip to rejoin the fight against reform, after McKalip had temporarily taken a lower profile in the movement in response to widespread outrage over the witch-doctor email.

As we reported earlier today, McKalip appears to have taken Scandlen's advice, attending a meeting this past weekend of conservative doctors -- including two U.S. congressmen -- and afterwards sending an exhortatory email to fellow activists. Conservative doctors have been organizing in recent days, in response to the White House event, held this morning, featuring pro-reform doctors.

Like McKalip, Scandlen is not just some random Tea Party activist. The Cato Institute has called him "one of the leading lights of the consumer-directed health care movement," and he's quoted frequently in the media as a staunch opponent of efforts to give the government a larger role in the system. In recent weeks, he has been making a series of public appearances to oppose reform. (Scroll down to: "Where's Greg?") And in August he wrote a post for the American Spectator in support of Sarah Palin's widely denounced claim that health-care reform would lead to "death panels."

On Saturday evening, an activist named Denise forwarded McKalip's message from the doctors' confab to a Tea Party email list. In response, another Tea Partier, Rob Neppell, objected, saying that McKalip's "presence discredits us all with the taint of racism" and arguing that he should be "shunned."

At that, Scandlen took umbrage. In a response to the group, he called Neppell's message "a slander against one of the best men I know," and argued that McKalip merely "made one mistake. He forwarded an offensive picture of Obama. PERIOD. He didn't create it. He didn't endorse it." (In fact, McKalip wrote "funny stuff" above the picture.)

Scandlen continued:

Dr. McKalip is a rock solid patriot and is completely devoted to preserving our freedom in health care and everything else.

Because he is an effective leader he was attacked by ACORN types who threatened his family. He withdrew from public discourse for a while to protect his family and his career. I for one encouraged him to get back in the battle. And he has.

This list has gotten FAR too interested in personally attacking other people who are working toward the same goals. It is in danger of becoming a small-minded gossip society. It would be a tragedy and a betrayal of the American People if we continue to devolve into this kind of self-destruction.

The string of emails was obtained by TPMmuckraker.

Scandlen did not immediately respond to TPMmuckraker's request for comment.

Late Update: Reached by phone, Scandlen declined to discuss his comments about McKalip.

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12 comments

Recommend Recommend (2)

October 5, 2009 2:10 PM   

Disgraced doc David McKalip spoutin' off again. http://bit.ly/jtNlN

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October 5, 2009 4:11 PM    in reply to Saint Petersblog

We shouldn't be surprised that everything they do is PATRIOTIC.

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October 5, 2009 2:13 PM   

Disgraced doc David McKalip breaks from family vacation in Yellowstone to attend TEA Party, blast Obama's health care plan

http://bit.ly/tfJNK

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October 5, 2009 2:51 PM   

Heartland Institute should be called the "Heartless Institute." They care only for corporate profits and right wing ideology.

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October 5, 2009 3:17 PM   

Down here in Florida, we all took a vote at our Klan meetin' and evry-body agreed, this here Doc is one fine fella.

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October 5, 2009 3:35 PM   

I swear on my pointy hat and burning cross he is a Patriot 100%.
I'm going to sit down now because my giant encephelus head is killing me.

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October 5, 2009 3:47 PM   

Patriot. I do not think that word means what you think it means.

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October 5, 2009 4:00 PM   


“Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -how passionately I hate them!”

Albert Einstein

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October 5, 2009 4:37 PM   

Like McKalip, Scandlen is not just some random Tea Party activist. The Cato Institute has called him "one of the leading lights of the consumer-directed health care movement,"

What a fine bit of doublespeak. "Consumer-directed health care" = "supported by corporations and wingnut welfare foundations."

The Institute has been actively involved in debate over tobacco policy, opposing restrictions on smoking and criticizing science which documents the harms of secondhand smoke.[11] Given the close financial and organizational relationship between the tobacco industry and the Heartland Institute, Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights described the Heartland Institute as "an active partner of the tobacco industry".

Heartland has been criticized for employing executives from such corporations as ExxonMobil and Philip Morris on its board of directors and in its public relations department.[13][14] The Heartland Institute disputes this criticism, stating that "no one on Heartland's board of directors works for a tobacco company (Roy Marden retired years ago) or for an oil company (Walter Buchholtz was on the board but no longer is)."[15] Heartland states that it does not accept government funds and does not conduct "contract" research for special-interest groups.[16]

...

The Heartland Institute receives donations from approximately 1,600 individuals, foundations, and corporations. No single corporate entity donates more than 5% of the operating budget according to brochures from the company. [17] MediaTransparency reported that the Heartland Institute received funding from politically conservative foundations such as the Castle Rock Foundation, the Sarah Scaife Foundation, the John M. Olin Foundation, and the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation.[18]

In a statement made by Dr. James McCarthy on March 28, 2007 to the Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight (House Science Committee), it was disclosed that ExxonMobil contributed a total of $560,000 to the Heartland Institute between 1998 and 2005.[19]
The Heartland Institute received $561,500 from ExxonMobil between 1998 and 2005. This included $119,000 in 2005, it's largest gift to Heartland in that period. Nearly 40% of funds from ExxonMobil were specifically designated for climate change projects


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heartland_Institute#Funding

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October 5, 2009 10:04 PM   

Sure he's a patriot! He cares about "our kind of people", IF you know what I mean.

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October 5, 2009 11:01 PM   

Therefore, a racist is a rock solid patriot. Q.E.D.

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October 6, 2009 11:45 AM   

“Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.” - Oscar Wilde

“Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.” - Samuel Johnson

“Patriotism is a pernicious, psychopathic form of idiocy” - George Bernard Shaw

I could go on but why bother...doubtless it will be lost on the likes of McKalip anyway.

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