Posted on 01/23/2010 7:56:30 AM PST by Sub-Driver
NPR Blames Conservatives for Obama's Broken Promises By Candance Moore Created 01/23/2010 - 10:18
Whatever version of healthcare reform President Obama gets from Congress will look nothing like the promises he made while campaigning.
According to NPR, it has nothing to do with Obama belting empty campaign slogans. Rather, NPR fired off a litany of conservative bogeymen, from Republicans to moderate Democrats to Sarah Palin's "death panels" to explain why Obama's campaign message has failed to materialize.
In an article [1] printed Thursday called "Why Public Support For Health Care Faltered," NPR, in cooperation with Kaiser Health News, began with the assumption that President Obama really meant his dream of healthcare for all that would magically be free:
As a candidate, Barack Obama promised to pass a health plan with important benefits for the average American. For the typical family, costs would go down by as much as $2,500 a year. Adults wouldn't be required to buy insurance. No one but the wealthy would face higher taxes.
But a year later, the health care proposals in Congress lack many of those easy-to-sell benefits, which became victims of the lengthy process of trying to win over wavering lawmakers, appeasing powerful special-interest groups and addressing concerns about the heavily burdened Treasury.
Those with functioning memories recall candidate Obama's rhetoric being unrealistic from the start. All the way back in 2007, Politico predicted [2] he would run on lofty visions of hope that were more about emotion than results.
Just after his inauguration, many liberals even awoke to the reality that his campaign had promised the moon with no plan to deliver. In March 2009, a writer for Forbes, sensing disappointment in his future, angrily accused [3] Obama of "bait-and-switch" to get elected.
But NPR could not be swayed. Those sunshiny promises had just fallen "victim" to moderate lawmakers - and now with Scott Brown riding into Congress, there was one more easy target to blame:
Today, health care legislation is in serious trouble, lacking a critical 60th vote in the Senate following the election of Republican Scott Brown to the Massachusetts seat held by the late Edward Kennedy.
Of course, Brown is only a hindrance now because the Democrats spent an entire year with a supermajority and still couldn't get it done. NPR explained this away with three things:
Certainly, relentless attacks by the Republicans - as well as the Democrats' own inability to clearly articulate the benefits of the legislation - are partly responsible for the legislation's lack of popularity. So are crucial policy decisions made by Democratic leaders as they struggled to push the legislation through Congress, according to experts of different ideological persuasions.
So even though President Obama himself did [4] four prime-time television appearances, 158 interviews, and 23 town hall meetings - not even counting the daily presence of his advisors in the media - no one on the left was able to explain the president's agenda in public. This phenomenon didn't seem the least big strange to NPR.
Then throw in the "crucial policy decisions" (which is NPR-speak for the embarrassing blunders of the Louisiana Purchase and Cornhusker Kickback), and NPR would have us believe that Congress is full of bumbling, hapless Democrats vulnerable to Republican attacks.
NPR then went on to whine about key social issues that had turned into "distractions" along the way:
Putting together complicated legislation is always messy, but the health care debate has been especially prone to distractions, setbacks, reversals and deal-making. For months, Senate Democratic leaders searched for a compromise that would bring at least one Republican on board while trying not to lose liberal Democrats who threatened to withhold support. The fight over a government-run insurance plan, known as "the public option," took so much time and energy that other issues were eclipsed. The fracas over "death panels" during the August recess fueled a revolt against the legislation. Abortion emerged as a potent issue that nearly derailed the legislation.
"The longer the clock's running, the bigger the chance you have for something to pop up and surprise you," says Peter Harbage, a Democratic health policy consultant.
Nowhere did NPR consider that Democrats had tried to ram through emergency bills precisely because the unresolved details would get in the way. Apparently when it came to government healthcare, Congress should have passed a messy bill that left abortion unanswered before it had a chance to "pop up" in debate.
By NPR's logic, one can only surmise that Obama's campaign platform would be realistic if no one asked tough questions, no one was allowed to stall, the Democrats were given a louder microphone, and Republicans didn't do any attacking.
In other words: his campaign rhetoric was never going to seriously happen.
NPR finished off the piece by explaining that the "sheer complexity" of the issue led to "enormously complicated" bills that average Americans could not understand. It wasn't that Democrats had turned health reform into a boondoggle - it was just a natural result of highly complex issues the little people need not worry about.
If only those darn Republicans stopped scaring them with death panels.
Talk about blaming the victims!
I really resent that my tax money goes to support these flaming liberals.
NATIONAL PUBLIC radio. What a joke.
Pull the plug on them.
And here I thought it was Bush....Well what do you expect from “Socialist Pigs” defending their place feeding at the OTM (our tax money)trough,
http://www.theusmat.com/
“It wasn’t that Democrats had turned health reform into a boondoggle - it was just a natural result of highly complex issues the little people need not worry about.”
Now we are little poeple that don’t need to worry about the details. Sounds a bit like communism to me. “Trust me comrade, everything is taken care of. Go back to your American Idol and Ballon Boy stories. We have everything under control”
"I'm starting with the man in the mirror I'm asking him to change his ways And no message could have been any clearer If you wanna make the world a better place Take a look at yourself, and then make a change"
That was eminently fair! If I’d spoken only the unvarnished truth, I’d get banned for using foul language.
iwould love to cut NPR lose.....
This can be no worse than Obamalamadingdong himself saying that the anger that got him elected was the same anger that got Brown elected. Sheesh, what a bonehead thing to say and have anyone except the leftists and progressives in this country believe him.
Keep an eye on the czars. They have been way too quiet for way to long. Something un-American and anti-Constitutional is brewing.
Very excellant link Paperdoll. Everyone needs to see this video. The Progressives are making thier move to control our lives under the cover of “Healthcare for All.” They will pick the winners and it isn’t you, the white, hard-working, middle class, non-union, capitalist, christian, American.
“PERHAPS THE FOLLOWING LINK WILL EXPLAIN WHY OBAMACARE IS NOT FARING WELL:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcBaSP31Be8";
It’s fun to play the same games as the Dems, especially when it comes to health care, but the information on the link is TOTALLY BOGUS, at least with the second item mentioned, what they call health care rationing (at the 20 second mark). The video says that you can only receive $5,000 per person or $10,000 per year in health care. I found those numbers to be suspect, to say the least (since a broken toe often costs more), so I looked at HB3200, on which the video is based and did find those numbers - they were referring to the maximum DEDUCTIBLE and the maximum CO-PAY (combined, along with other things) that can be required (they call it “cost sharing” and essentially define cost sharing in the bill as I stated). The narrator is FLAT-OUT LYING.
But still, since nearly 1,000,000 people have viewed it, it’s not all bad - if it drives the debate in the right direction (i.e., to kill the bill). And it’s GREAT to be playing ball the same way that Micheal Moore does it - using bogus information, as we have to play on their level, or we lose.
YES, I HOPE EVERYONE WHO DOWNLOADS IT WILL PASS IT ON TO EVERYONE THEY KNOW. THERE ARE SO FEW SOURCES AVAILABLE ABOUT WHAT THIS EVIL BILL WILL DO TO OUR LIVES WHICH HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH HEALTHCARE.
We’ll take the compliment !!!
Thank you, NPR!
SINCE I JUST POSTED THAT AT 8:07, I DOUBT VERY MUCH THAT YU LISTENED TO THE FULL VIDEO. I DON’T CALL THIS VIDEO MICHAEL MOORE TYPE GAMES, MOR SHOULD YOU AT YOUR OWN PERIL. OBAMA AND THE COMMUNIST CONGRESS WILL WIN WITH DOUBTERS SUCH AS YOURSELF. I WONDER WHY YOU ARE SO QUICK TO DEFEND THE BILL BY ATTACKING THE VIDEO.
NPR is a PROPAGANDA OUTLET for the socialist NEW WORLD ORDER for which Obama is their poster boy.
It is staffed with taxpayer funded hard-core leftists who probably couldn’t hold down a job in the private sector.
Ignorant can be cured. Stupid is forever. Some of these leftists MAY be ignorant. Some MAY be stupid.
Having said that, they are mostly meretricious and mendacious Marxist myrmidons preaching political correctness, diversity and multiculturism bent on the destruction of American sovereignty.
Most of them are NOT ignorant. They know PRECISELY what they are doing.
I want them OUT OF BUSINESS. Without TAXPAYER FUNDING, they soon would be.
Defund them. It's an outrage that our people on radio have to get advertisers and their side gets a free ride. I am sick of the double standard. And I'm sick of paying for it.
You caps are annoying, but you’ve apologized.
No, I keyed in on the FIRST thing that seemed to not make any sense...the idea that individuals are limited to $5,000 worth of medical care. IT IS FALSE. As to the rest, there are a lot of statements that are accurate, and there are others that are false, and there are some that false because they are stated with the intention to deceive (such as the narrator stating that the bill states how much doctors can “make”, whereas the bill actually states how much doctors can “charge” - huge difference, since many doctors that I know made most of their money outside of their profession).
You’re welcome to defend the first statement that I pointed out (regarding the $5,000), and tell me why I’m wrong, and if you don’t, I take it that you agree that it is a lie - and if so, then it is a Michael Moore tactic...which I’m still happy that we’re doing, since we’ll lose if we don’t ply on their field.
As to my motives, you are also welcome to look up my 4,000 or so other posts to help you with that call.
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