Conservatives hate Hillary, but love lobbyists By Curt Andersen News-Chronicle Conservatives love to hate Hillary Rodham-Clinton. They really hated her for the new health care plan she created. They can't tell you why they hate her for this. Neither can they remember the plan's details, nor is it likely they ever knew the nitty-gritty of the plan, but they all got together to catcall and hiss. The health insurance lobby, one of the biggest and richest of the special interests in America, and one we all love to hate, spent a big boodle of bucks on smarmy ads to destroy any discussion of that plan, good or bad. You may remember the Harry and Louise commercials created by the Health Insurance Association of America in 1993. They spent $10 million on those commercials to poison the discussion about affordable health insurance. In the commercials, Louise whined, "We don't want some big inefficient government agency messing up our health insurance." Let's finish that statement. "No, instead, we want a parasitic, profit-focussed corporation with all the warmth of penguin poo to hold us hostage on claims while non-doctors second-guess real doctors to determine if the companies will cover a prescription or authorize surgery." When special interests make statements, they should always have a comma at the end, so we can finish the sentence properly. When we talk about campaign finance reform, we eventually discuss the merits of public financing. I wish I had a buck for every time I heard the statement, "I don't wanna pay for no campaigns for no crooked politicians." (Ah, yes, and yet we have been, thanks to some "irregularities" by caucus staffers and their elected bosses.) Let's finish their sentence: "... instead, we get financing by special interests, which, like any bribery system, is turning our democracy into a cacatocracy of wealthy contributors who suckle at the public teat." When it comes to forest products, you can hear the shrill cry of the lumber baron's bootlicks, "If our industry is to survive, we have to open up these old growth forests to logging!" Horsehockey! Ending the sentence with a comma would allow us to finish the sentence thusly: "... until there are no more old-growth forests." When they finally cut down all these old growth forests, they will be gone forever, along with the genetics in their seeds and the wonderful environment they created. Then what will forest industry whiners say? They'll probably blame environmentalists for not working hard enough on the problem. Then they'll use their same old tricks to steal trees from the Russians in Siberia. Maybe they won't wait at all! Maybe they'll play both games at the same time. The paper industry continues to "legally" dump tons of pollution into the nation's rivers annually, saying they couldn't compete if they had to treat the waste. Let's finish that sentence: "... even though if we all had to treat our waste, we would all be on an even keel." Since when would they mind charging more for their product? In Europe, paper mills are way ahead of the American profiteers when it comes to pollution abatement. Industry lobbyists wrote the laws that made it "legal," though still immoral, to pollute. These special interests cost us our money and our health. Help the special interests finish their sentences, lest we miss the real meaning.