Thursday, December 16, 2010

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.

8 comments:

Tennessee Jed said...

I laughed (out loud mind you) several times while reading. It never ceases to amaze the contortions the media will go through to spin things their way. Screw Sherriff Taylor and Opey, anyway.

I think you need a subheading, Hawk; AND I know what it is:

LawhawkRFD - "I watch this shit so you won't have to!"

Great job.

Unknown said...

Tennessee Jed: Thanks for the laugh I needed after having to write about Democrats and the media spin on their behalf. I have to laugh so I won't cry.

T_Rav said...

Trust Dana Loesch (a fellow Missourian, naturally) to be the one to take apart Carville's and Snuffleupagus' talking points.

It always amazes me when I get glimpses into liberals' minds. The past year or so that I've been in grad school, I've met quite a few leftists, and the topic of ObamaCare has come up frequently in our "conversations," and I use that term loosely. The gist of their arguments seems to be that it doesn't really matter that a majority of Americans oppose it because they're fickle and will just be complaining later about not having free stuff, so it's best to just ignore them altogether and get this done. I can't tell whether or not they expect the unwashed masses to be grateful later, but I suspect many of them no longer care.

Unknown said...

T_Rav: The current fiasco in the House is a perfect example of liberal dysfunctional thinking. Sometimes they ignore the will of the people, sometimes they outright oppose it, but it never occurs to them that their opposition might actually have something valuable to say or any right to say it.

Writer X said...

No doubt Obama, Carville, et al. are planning a Hollywood-like theme song and spiffy t-shirt roll-out. That ought to win more hearts! Maybe they could overpay Andy Griffin again to write a folksy song and then get Ashton and Demi to direct a television commercial?

Unknown said...

WriterX: Well said. I'm waiting for them to do a commercial where Sheriff Andy gets denied treatment because he's too old and senile for it to be cost-effective.

StanH said...

Barrycare is a direct affront to the greatness of America. The very thing that separates us from the rest of the world is our freedom. Not to be latched to a lumbering dispassionate government, whose only concern is to facilitate the beauroacracy in some harebrained liberal jobs program, healthcare be damned. We rejected Hillarycare in ’94 and we rejected Barrycare in 2010, except this time it was jammed down our throats. We must respond in kind, contact your representatives in regards to the $1.3trillion Omnibus bill, though it appears to be on the ropes, these Washington weasels can’t be trusted with the treasury. Bear in mind much of Barrycare funding is lurking in this Obomanation, burn the phones and emails up.

Unknown said...

Stan: Sorry. I didn't see your comment 'til this morning. You're absolutely on-target, and Congress almost actually did its job by dumping the $1.1 trillion dollar omnibus giveaway bill and at least extending the Bush tax cuts for two years without the eat-the-rich class warfare. Now we have to keep our fingers crossed (or intertwined in prayer) that come January, the Republicans will start the march toward fiscal responsibility and dismantling of the Obamacare obamanation.

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