EDITORIAL: Is the Word ‘Holocaust’ Sacrosanct, Reserved Only for the Genocide Committed by Nazis in WWII?
Thursday, October 1st, 2009I adore Rachel Maddow. I watch her show on MSNBC every night, and continue to be amazed that she’s still on the air, and I agree with 98% of her perspectives on the issues.
One of the 2% exceptions occurred on her show last night. Representative Alan Grayson (D-FL) gave a biting, sardonic speech on Tuesday in the House about the Republican resistance to health care reform. “The Republican health care plan is this: Don’t get sick, and if you do get sick, die quickly.” Yesterday, in response to Republican demands that he apologize for his remarks, Grayson said: ”I apologize to the dead and their families that we haven’t voted sooner to end this holocaust in America.”
Last night, Grayson was a guest on Maddow’s show, and instead of asking him about the motivation for his speech, her primary focus was on trying to elicit an apology from him for using the word holocaust in reference to the 44,000+ Americans per year who perish due to lack of health insurance. I am neither oblivious nor insensitive to the roots of Maddow’s objection, given that she is Jewish, and holocaust is often used to describe the genocide of the Nazi concentration camps in World War II. But she did a disservice to Grayson and to her audience by detracting from a brave stand made by a lone congressman before his colleagues that is unprecedented thus far in this health care circus. Given that the word holocaust dates back to the 13th century, and literally means “a thorough destruction involving extensive loss of life especially through fire” [Merriam-Webster Online], using it to emphasize the shocking number of deaths EVERY YEAR that can be directly attributed to the outrageous cost of health insurance in this country isn’t beyond the pale. Hyperbolic, perhaps, but not inappropriate when you’re in a room full of vermin who are literally willing to say anything to ensure that true reform never happens.
Maddow owes an apology to Congressman Grayson and to her audience for allowing her personal feelings to encroach on his very important point regarding the opposition to reform.