Michelle Malkin: 'We Do Not Need To Be Lectured' By Jimmy Kimmel
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Conservative columnist and author Michelle Malkin blasted late night television host Jimmy Kimmel for detailing the struggle his family has gone through in the last two weeks after his son was born with a heart defect and making a plea for greater access to health care regardless of income level.
Jimmy Kimmel Tearfully Reveals Son's Health Crisis
Malkin told Chris Stigall on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT that she's been through a similar situation and said Kimmel's show is not the time or place for substantive debate on healthcare.
"We have a child who has a chronic illness and we do not need to be lectured about compassion. We certainly don't need to be lectured about not having a heart and not knowing what it's like to live with the panic and the helplessness and the anxiety and the relief and the grief and the anger and the unconditional love and continued worry that comes with raising a chronically ill child. But, the very serious and grave debate about health insurance and what the best delivery mechanism and system is should not be left simply to late night comedians who want to use their own personal plight to impose a certain set of policy values on America."
She thinks he is abused his position to go on a political rant.
"It would be one thing if he had used his platform to simply educate the public about coping with rare illnesses or to champion the medical specialists and professionals that he was so fortunate to benefit from and that his child was able to benefit from. But no, he had to use it as a political cudgel to whack everyone over the head who doesn't fall in line with his ideology and that's what my problem was."
In addition to Kimmel, Malkin criticized Republicans in the House of Representatives as they prepared to pass a long awaited bill that will repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, calling it an undated version of the same law.
"Jimmy Kimmel can cry his eyes out empty boxes of Kleenex and proclaim the Republicans the meanest, most homicidal people in America and, yet, the sober eyed reality is that so much of this so-called repeal is just going to double down and make things worse. It is Obamacare 2.0 in the end."
