The national media's track record on reporting the issues was about c-minus, often speculating on things that didn't happen. The influential A-list people working in Washington have agendas, and for scoop-hungry pundits, it was not difficult to find "well connected insiders" on both sides who used pundits as their surrogates on the national public address system to plant a rumor. Some reported that the public option was DOA in the House, or that it was alive but would likely take us into next year to resolve (according to, eh...sources familiar with someone else who was familiar with someone tracking the inside sources. The new media moral: Get it first, even if it's wrong. LESSON: It will get worse as the Senate takes up the bill.
Fox News broke the mold on the cliche that you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it it drink. It proved that you can not only lead an audience to contaminated water, you can also force it to drink it. LESSON: There are more horses' asses at Fox than there are horses.
Sen. Harry Reid is making a mockery of his title of Senate Majority Leader. So far he has acted as the Senate minority leader, which is just fine for Republicans. If the Democrats do nothing else, and they probably won't, they should put him out to pasture when they return in January. He's managed to reverse the meaning of majority and minority. LESSON: You'd have a better chance at the roulette wheels in Reid's home state of Nevada than laying down a wager that Reid will rise to the occasion of his high office. He's not a carpe diem kind of guy!
The nation is now divided into two parts: Wall Street and everybody else. And Wall Street is winning, thanks to the willingness of the Obama Administration to turn the other cheek while the investment empire gives its employes billions in bonuses. LESSON: With the Wall Streeters, including the health care industry and pharmaceuticals, you have no chance. None.
Separation of church and state is a myth. Further evidence of this was the invasion of Capitol Hill by powerful Catholic bishops to strong-arm (with success) House members to take public funding of abortion off the table, not prayerfully but with threats to call out pro-choice candidates on Election Day. Much of Europe, with the exception of Ireland, has legalized abortion. Even Italy, where voters are in the Vatican's neighborhood, legalized abortion in 1978 and in 1981 rejected by a 2-1 margin a referendum that would have again outlawed abortion. LESSON: The last remaining bastion against the separation of church and state is the exemption of taxes from churches.
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1 comment:
Sad, but true, on all counts. The pandering cynicism and incompetence of the mainstream media (and blatant partisanship of that pretend media outlet, Faux News) on the healthcare debate, as with so many, is staggering.
Hard not to see the good guys fighting with one hand tied behind their backs, and a sack over their heads, when the Press is so anti-liberal, and the Democrats either in a lingering state of post-traumatic stress/hostage syndrome, and/or firmly in the pockets of corporate interests and lobbyists.
And might I add that that sell-out to the C-Street radical fundamentalists with Stupak's anti-choice coathanger amendment is particularly enraging. Democrats are quickly rejecting their base, and will get their butts kicking in 2010 if said base stays home in disgust.
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