Graeme Frost

The Press, The Plumber And The Liberal Poster Boy
By Danny Glover | October 16, 2008 | 8:29 PM EDT

With 15 minutes of fame comes 15 hours of “gotcha” scrutiny -- especially if you’re a voter who has dared to criticize Barack Obama, the liberal media’s Chosen One for president.

Ohio plumber Joe Wurzelbacher has had his 15 minutes of fame, capping it off with an unplanned appearance as the poster boy of populist tax policy in last night’s presidential debate. So now it’s time for the press to turn its sights on him not as a human-interest story but as an investigative subject.

Jonathan Martin of The Politico was among the first out of the gate, with blog posts noting that Wurzelbacher, affectionately known by most of America as “Joe The Plumber,” has a tax lien against him and doesn’t have a plumber’s license. Martin conveniently forgot to mention that the law doesn’t require one.) Bloomberg also has a story on the tax lien, and AP and The Washington Post did their part to make a story out of the “unlicensed” non-story.

WaPo Notes Frost Family Connection to Liberal Health Care Advocate
By Ken Shepherd | October 23, 2007 | 2:20 PM EDT

Every time the media feature an ostensibly Average Joe to further a liberal Democratic talking point, my curiosity is piqued as to how that person was singled out by a news agency to flesh out the human dimension of a policy argument. Many times it turns out the poster child/family in question is delivered to the media on a silver platter courtesy of a professional liberal activist. The Frost family of Baltimore seems to be no exception, as Lisa Rein of the Washington Post noted in passing deep in her October 23 article on Bonnie Frost's pro-socialized health care activism.:

"Bonnie's a symbol of the true depth of the health-care crisis in Maryland," said Vincent DeMarco, president of the Maryland Citizens' Health Initiative, which is sponsoring the new radio ad. "Luckily, CHIP is there for their kids, but there's nothing for them."
Time's Klein Hated 'Cynical' 'Snowflake Babies', Now Bashes Frost Cynicism From Bloggers
By Ken Shepherd | October 15, 2007 | 3:01 PM EDT

Time's Joe Klein (file photo at right) has a bit of a hypocrisy problem. After earlier saying he wanted to "throw up" after seeing President Bush showcase "snowflake babies," children adopted as frozen embryos, during a ceremony marking his veto of a bill to expand federally-funded destruction of embryos for medical research, Klein professes disdain not at Democratic partisans who used 12-year-old Graeme Frost to plug the vetoed SCHIP expansion, but conservative bloggers who brought scrutiny to bear on Frost's parents, Democratic officials, and a lapdog liberal media that uncritically relayed the Frost family's account.

NYT: In SCHIP Controversy, Conservative Bloggers 'Attacking a Family With Injured Children'
By Clay Waters | October 10, 2007 | 3:36 PM EDT

David Herszenhorn's front-page "Political Memo" for Wednesday's New York Times was devoted to the fight over Graeme Frost, the boy pushed forward by the Democrats to deliver the response to Bush's weekly radio address on the State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP).

Baltimore Sun Smears Conservative Bloggers Over SCHIP Scrutiny
By Ken Shepherd | October 10, 2007 | 2:33 PM EDT

On September 29, 2007, Baltimore 12-year old Graeme Frost became the Democratic poster child, literally, for SCHIP. Frost read the Democratic Party's official response to the president's weekly radio address, attacking President Bush for his veto of a Democratic-sponsored bill to balloon federal spending on the 10-year old program. The Baltimore Sun ran a story that morning noting young Graeme Frost's brush with political football history, and two days earlier ran a gauzy profile on Graeme's mom and dad and their push for the Democratic SCHIP expansion here. But now that conservative bloggers have been raising questions about the portrayal by Democrats and the Baltimore Sun of the family's financial plight, the Sun is hitting back by attacking conservatives bloggers as heartless and obsessive, Michelle Malkin noted on her blog.

Media Fail at Fact Checking on 12 Year Old Voice of SCHIP; Blogs Pick Up Slack
By John Stephenson | October 7, 2007 | 9:36 PM EDT

The media piled on when President Bush used his veto pen on this children's health insurance bill. They tried to drop the absolute moral authority bomb on it big time and paint him as not caring about children.