Cerabino: Allen West’s new designation? Depends on how you define ‘magnificent’ – Palm Beach Post
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
My congressman Allen West has been named to the “Magnificent Eleven.”
You probably haven’t heard about the Magnificent Eleven unless you got a slick ad in the mail from Heritage Action for America, an arm of the conservative Heritage Foundation.
“Despite unrelenting liberal attacks, Congressman Allen West came to the defense of our future,” the mailer reads. “That’s why he’s been named one of The Magnificent Eleven.”
I hope this starts a new trend, in which members of Congress will no longer be formed into “gangs.”
It’s hard to keep track of all the “gangs” in Congress.
The country’s debt issues this year had been negotiated by some Senators called the “Gang of Six,” which shouldn’t be confused with the “Gang of Seven” in the House that had tackled the country’s banking scandal in the 1990s, or the “Gang of Fourteen” that formed in 2005 to oppose the Senate’s filibuster rule.
The stimulus discussions two years ago led to a “Gang of Three” moderate Republicans, and energy policy resulted in the formation of “The Gang of Twenty.”
South-Central Los Angeles has fewer gangs than Congress.
‘A bold plan to fix our economy’
So I was relieved to discover that the national conservative group took a fresh approach to avoid putting West on a “Gang of Eleven,” and opted for a different collective name.
But I have a beef with the word choice of “Magnificent.”
The ad goes on to state that West is magnificent because he voted for U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan’s Medicare overhaul, the one that turns an open-entitlement program for America’s elderly into a voucher program with fixed government costs.
“Putting the well-being of our nation ahead of his career, Allen West courageously voted for a bold plan to fix our economy.”
The “bold” plan involves quite a bit of sacrifice. Not to the richest of Americans, who would retain their temporary Bush tax cuts, but to tomorrow’s senior citizens, who would find a yearly cap on their health care benefits.
“Liberals claim the plan ends Medicare,” the ad says. “This is a lie.”
Fair enough. It doesn’t end Medicare. It just changes it, much in the same way that amputating one hand doesn’t end your ability to play the piano.
Against cuts while he was for them
The proposed voucher plan would give seniors about 32 percent of the money needed to receive comparable coverage under today’s program, a Congressional Budget Office report said.
(Maybe I should revise that piano analogy to amputating one hand, and taking two fingers off the remaining one.)
Sounds more grim than magnificent.
The ad isn’t the first time that conservative groups have tried to get local seniors to thank West for supporting deep cuts in Medicare. It takes a bit of nerve.
But that’s not the worst part of it. When West ran for Congress, he tried to scare the elderly voters by pointing out that President Obama’s health care plan would gut their Medicare coverage by making $500 billion in cuts.
OK, except that those same $500 billion in cuts remained in the Ryan plan. In other words, West campaigned against the cuts he voted for when in office.
And the day after making that vote, he spoke to a tea party group in Boca Raton, and repeated his attempt to scare senior citizens about the new health care law.
“Five hundred billion in cuts to Medicare is not the way to take care of seniors,” he said.
Did I say this was a day after he voted for those cuts and a whole lot more?
I suppose that pointing out this inconvenient chronology will just be categorized as another liberal attack.
But the unrelenting facts are biased in this case. And words do have meaning.
Which brings me back to the word, “Magnificent.”
Certainly, there must be a more accurate 11-letter adjective that describes West’s actions on Medicare.
A word that’s more fact-based.
The Duplicitous Eleven? He could certainly be a member of that gang.