ObamaCare Aided by Big Doses of Media Spin

MRC ^ | March 15, 2010 | Rich Noyes

[Conservative Coulter Fan]

The end of Congress’s long debate over ObamaCare could be near, as the President pushes for a final vote this week before his Asia trip, and House Democrats want a resolution before next week’s Easter break.

Yet whether or not liberals’ dreams are ultimately realized, they have had a huge advantage throughout the process. Over the past twelve months, journalists have continually stacked the deck in favor of a big government takeover of health care. A review of the worst spin:

■ On March 1, 2009, previewing Obama’s first White House meeting on health care, ABC’s Dr. Tim Johnson championed the liberal side. “We spend more than twice as much, per person, on health care in this country as the average of all other industrialized countries, yet we’re the only one that doesn’t have universal coverage. That’s a national shame,” Johnson announced on World News.

■ Obama’s March 5, 2009 health care conference drew rave reviews. On Nightly News, NBC’s Chuck Todd saluted how Obama had abandoned the “secrecy” of Hillary Clinton’s mid-1990s effort, and he enthused over the “Knute Rockne-like boost” an ailing Senator Ted Kennedy provided. On ABC’s World News, Tim Johnson gushed: “I was blown away by President Obama’s grasp of the subject, how he connected the dots, how he answered the questions without any script.”

■ As Obama kicked off his push for legislation, ABC News on June 24 hosted a two-hour prime time “town hall meeting,” with ABC’s anchors using the White House as home base for Good Morning America, World News and Nightline. On World News, reporter David Wright claimed “Democrats and Republicans alike” hoped Obama would succeed in fixing health care “because something needs to be done....The need is obvious.”

■ At the outset, the networks permitted little conservative dissent. The MRC’s Business & Media Institute calculated that, during the first six months of 2009, 70% of soundbites supported Obama’s liberal health care ideas, and gave short shrift to complaints about the hefty price tag.

■ As opposition to ObamaCare began to take hold, journalists led a counterattack. On the July 22 Good Morning America, ABC’s Chris Cuomo indignantly asked California Govenor Arnold Schwarzenegger: “Do you believe that the Republicans are playing politics here, at the risk of people’s health care?...Is this getting to be a little bit of a reckless situation?” On NBC’s Today, Matt Lauer accused Senator Jim DeMint: “Are you rallying conservatives to the cause of health care reform? Or are you rallying conservatives to the cause of breaking a President?”

■ As citizens voiced opposition in town hall meetings over the summer, journalists disparaged the dissenters. Writing on AOL’s “Politics Daily” site, ex-CNN reporter Bob Franken blasted anti-ObamaCare protesters as “a crazed group” engaged in “organized intimidation.” Hardball host Chris Matthews blamed it all on racism: “I think some of the people are upset because we have a black president.” And Good Morning America’s Bill Weir warned “the rising anger is now ramping up concerns over the President’s personal safety.”

■ MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann was the most extreme, equating ObamaCare foes to suicide bombers: “When Hamas does it or Hezbollah does it, it is called terrorism. Why should Republican lawmakers and the AstroTurf groups organizing on behalf of the health care industry be viewed any differently — especially now that far too many Tea Party protesters are comparing President Obama and health care reform to Hitler and the Holocaust?”

■ Even as anti-Obama protesters were being vilified, the lobbying favor of ObamaCare continued. On August 6, Time senior political analyst Mark Halperin, previously political director at ABC News, declared on CNN’s Lou Dobbs Tonight: “We’re the only industrialized democracy that doesn’t cover every citizen. That is immoral.”

■ The broadcast networks seized on long lines at a free clinic in Los Angeles as evidence of, as CBS’s Katie Couric led her August 13 Evening News, “why many believe reform is desperately needed.” Two days later, ABC’s Dan Harris hit the same story on World News: “Tonight, a vivid demonstration of the health care crisis: A clinic that provides free health care has been inundated with patients. Almost 46 million people in this country do not have health insurance, but the problem is a lot bigger than that....”

■ After Ted Kennedy passed away in August, journalists tried to use his death to boost ObamaCare. “Even though he’s gone, his energy may help push this Obama plan through,” CBS News presidential historian Douglas Brinkley hoped during live overnight coverage just hours after Kennedy’s death was announced. “There is already an e-mail circulating that I’ve received today that reads simply, ‘In lieu of flowers, pass health care reform,’” NBC’s Brian Williams promoted early the next morning on Today.

■ Obama’s September 9 health care speech to Congress also drew raves: “This might have been the most emotional speech I’ve seen President Obama give....This is very close to President Obama’s heart,” ABC’s George Stephanopoulos enthused moments after the speech ended. On Nightline, ABC’s Terry Moran saluted how Obama “sought to draw on the grand rhetorical tradition of President Kennedy and others, trying to summon the country to a great and necessary endeavor.”

■ By late September, however, MSNBC’s Ed Schultz was frothing at ObamaCare’s opponents, accusing them of wanting Americans to die: “The Republicans lie! They want to see you dead! They’d rather make money off your dead corpse!” Two weeks later, MSNBC host Dylan Ratigan seconded the inflammatory charge: “There are people that are actually trying to derail health care in order to take down Obama, even if it means half the country dies.”

■ On her September 18 CBS Evening News, Katie Couric touted a “Harvard study” that claimed “nearly 45,000 American deaths every year are linked to a lack of insurance.” Neither Couric nor reporter Jim Axelrod noted the “study” was really produced by a group pushing an end to private insurance in favor of a single-payer system.

■ After the Senate dropped provisions for government-run insurance, ABC’s Charles Gibson fretted on December 18: “Without a public option, without an expansion of Medicare, is it better than nothing?” ABC’s Tim Johnson vouched for the bill’s liberalism: “I would personally prefer to have the public option....But what’s left is not insignificant.” Two days later, on ABC’s This Week, Cokie Roberts argued people were against the bill out of ignorance: “A lot of people are going to like it a whole lot once they see what’s in it....It’s just a question of understanding it.”

■ Anti-ObamaCare candidate Scott Brown’s victory was treated as dour news by the media. NBC’s Meredith Vieira asked Brown about his post-election phone call to Ted Kennedy’s widow: “How comfortable was that for both of you, knowing that you plan to do whatever you can to derail what Ted Kennedy called, called ‘the cause of his lifetime,’ which is health care reform?”

■ After a year of setbacks, reporters were still quick to crown Obama victorious after his health care “summit” with Republicans. On the CBS Evening News, Chip Reid insisted that Obama had laid the groundwork for jamming through a final bill, saying the President had succeeded in showing “that the Republicans are the party of no, they won’t compromise, and he now has no choice but to move ahead with Democrats alone.”

No conservative quest has ever been treated to the helpful press coverage ObamaCare has received. If it fails, liberals can’t blame a hostile media.

[VRWC For Truth]

As Soetoro goes ... so does the State Run Media. I foresee unemployment in Big Media Dinosaur’s future.

[OafOfOffice]

I just read a Deal cut with Stupak.

More when I know more. Stupak may be the doom vote.

[bronxville]

Great post - a keeper. Thanks.

[mlocher]

The best way to fight back is to boycott not only the news shows on these stations, but all shows. And boycott the advertisers too!

[FlingWingFlyer]

I’m having a hard time figuring out who is working harder to get commiecare passed. The ‘RATS or their useful idiots in the state run “media”.

[Commander X]

Well..duh...of course the MSM has supported this bill from day 1, there the ones that got this fraud elected in the first place. Calling Captain Obvious....

[VRWC For Truth]

The SRM is in the tank for Soetoro. It’s all spin.

[mlocher]

I foresee unemployment in Big Media Dinosaur’s future.

It is inevitable. Advertising dollars alone will not support the businesses as they are today. It will take someone with bucks to spend to spread a message -- that is, someone who does not want to make a profit.

[A_Former_Democrat]

I’ve never once heard them exclaim the best and the brightest that American medicine and Rx is. That virtually all the innovations arise here.

Or that Government will do to healthcare costs and inefficiencies like it has everything else, including Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

[OafOfOffice]

This is online but someone has more recent reports unless we are being played.

http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2010/03/20/the-good-fight/

The Good Fight
Saturday, March 20, 2010, 12:50 PM
Stephen Dillard
This is what I am hearing from a very reliable source regarding the ongoing health-care-reform battle:

(1) Stupak is not caving;

(2) Stupak walked out of the meeting this morning with Pelosi, et al;

(3) Stupak is working to kill the bill; and

(4) The dems don’t currently have the votes.

I will update this post if I learn anything else that isn’t already being reported by mainstream-media outlets.

Update: According to Molly Hooper, a Capitol Hill reporter:

Hoyer [is] ”hopeful” that an “executive order” on abortion and the healthcare bill will persuade “a majority of pro-life Democrats” to support the package.

FDL–a liberal, proabortion blog–has more on the possibility of an executive-order “fix” by President Obama here.

Update II: My source tells me that the executive-order deal is all but dead. The proposed language did not satisfy Stupak or the remaining members in his ever-decreasing coalition. My source also, once again, emphasized that Stupak will not (under any circumstances) cave: “He’s all in.”

Update III: Here is the latest from my source:

Deal just cut. Stupak on board.

Executive order enabled by colloquy on the floor. No language yet, but supposedly forbids Community Health Center money from being used for abortion and prevents anyone who takes govt subsidy from buying into plan that covers abortion.

I cannot see how they are getting all this. Must not be whole story, or a hole somewhere.

Will report more when I know it

[RetiredArmy]

The day Oberman falls off the face of the earth the earth will will be million percent better off. Calling him scum is too put down scum.

[Billthedrill]

Remember the names. When the reckoning comes in November it will be nice to remind the MSM that the wreckage is as much their fault as anyone else’s.

[Conservative Coulter Fan]

ABC’s Dr. Tim Johnson championed the liberal side. “We spend more than twice as much, per person, on health care in this country as the average of all other industrialized countries, yet we’re the only one that doesn’t have universal coverage. That’s a national shame,” Johnson announced on World News.

For a rebuttal to these types of arguments, see my thread The Grass Is Not Always Greener: A Look at National Health Care Systems Around the World

[MplsSteve]

“On NBC’s Today, Matt Lauer accused Senator Jim DeMint: ‘Are you rallying conservatives to the cause of health care reform? Or are you rallying conservatives to the cause of breaking a President?’

Lauer’s liberal bias aside, it is this type of liberal slant that needs to be challenged everytime it’s brought up.

What I’d have like to have heard was Jim DeMint saying “Well Matt, by the tone of your question, I think we know where you stand on this issue. Do you have any serious or legitimate questions you’d like to ask me?”

The sooner our GOP leaders start getting in the face of those who ask loaded questions, the better off we’ll all be.

Remember back in 1988 when George Bush challenged Dan Rather on national TV? We need more of that.

[Frantzie]

Until Americans cancel TV period - nothing will change. The Dems power is through TV news. The crap today show all the networks including much of Fox are in 100% support Obama mode.

Americans have sold themslves to serfdom due to their TV addiction. As long as people pay cable and sat TV bills - each month part of their bill goes to EVERY network even if you do not watch it ever.

[no dems]

O.K., I have a question for everyone:
What are the chances this bill, if passed, will end up in the Supreme Court?

Somebody help me out here.

[GalaxieFiveHundred]

[cranked]

Oh look, a collection of failed libtard news channels.....

[Deo volente]

I just checked the latest from AP on my Yahoo news page. How's this for propaganda?

AP - Victory within reach, President Barack Obama exhorted House Democrats on Saturday to stay true to their party's legacy and make history by bringing health insurance to millions of struggling families now left out. Leaders exuded confidence as they defused thorny problems in the countdown to a landmark vote.

They make it sound like the most wonderful thing in the history of the world is about to happen!