ABC Discovers Obamacare Not Popular

I thought the logo for ABC TV from 1949 was appropriate since the network doesn't seem to have improved much since that time. On December 13 an ABC/Washington Post (another dinosaur) poll disclosed that Obamacare is, believe it or not, more unpopular than ever.

Despite having taken up residence in the White House Obamacare Booster Bedroom, ABC was shocked--shocked--to find out just how unpopular nationalized/socialized medicine really is. Perhaps the network should change its logo to look like CBS's cyclops, only with the eyelid closed. They could use George Stephanopoulos's eyelashes. He has great eyelashes, doesn't he? But I digress.

And speaking of Stephanopoulos, during an interview with James (Gollum) Carville, young George made one of the few mentions of ABC's own poll by telling Carville "and we have a new poll out just yesterday, showing that public support for health care is the lowest it's ever been." Nice job, George. Completely ignored the fact that health care is very popular (everyone needs it). It's Obamacare that's sinking like a stone. After making an additional passing reference to the recent federal appellate court decision finding the Obamacare bill full of constitutional holes, Stephanoupolos asked Carville: "How much time and energy can the President and his team afford to invest in this fight." Carville's reply was something like "golly, whumph crawdads and trailer parks." Or words to that effect.

That was the first and last reference to "health care" for the rest of Good Morning, America. Understandable, since the poll shows that outright opposition to the entire package now stands at 52% while support is at a mere 43%. Didn't Obama and Andy Griffith tell us that the more we learned about it, the more we'd like it? That doesn't seem to be the case since shortly after the passage of the bill, support was a point or two higher than the opposition.

Included in the discussion was Dan Loesch who is editor-in-chief of BigJournalism.com, a site with which most of our readers are very familiar. Stephanopoulos led Loesch away from the unpopularity of the massive plan and instead concentrated on the court decision, hoping to sidetrack the issue of Obama's successful failure. It's easier to blame a Bush judicial appointee than to blame 52% of the American people for their partisanship. Loesch wasn't buying it and discussed the decision rationally rather than politically, leaving Carville to muddy the waters.

Carville gave the usual Democratic litany about how brave Obama and Congress had been, how tortuous the road to Obamacare was, and blaming the unpopularity on the uncertainties of the warring appellate districts. He is sure that Obamacare will regain its popularity as soon as the matter is finally settled. "People aren't knowing if they're going to get it. And who kinows if provisions are going to be there? And how long it's going to take. So, this is the way our system works. We're along for the ride. We'll do a lot more shows on this issue." I'm sure they will, as soon as they have decided how they're going to spin the bill's plummeting numbers into a victory of some sort.

So now you should understand that Obamacare isn't really unpopular. It's all in how you read the falling support. It's not because it's a monstrosity, a huge takeover of a major portion of the American economy, a proven failure in England, or another power-grab at the expense of the freedom of the American people. No, no. As Carville tells us, it's because it's just so darned good that the reactionaries are trying to use the courts to subvert it and cloud the brilliance of the scheme. As soon as we've finished "going along for the ride," and the judges are finally out of the way, America will re-discover how fabulous the plan is, and the positive poll numbers will shoot back to their all-time high of about 49%. At which point, Obama will re-explain it to us and Nancy Pelosi will have had enough time to read it to see what's in it.