Liberal pundit fail: Rush to attack Obamacare site only aids unhinged right

[DonViejo]

Pundits breathlessly pivot from covering GOP extremism to Healthcare.gov glitches, with the backing of liberals

BY JOAN WALSH

As predictably as night follows day, on Monday the media establishment pivoted away from obsessing about GOP extremism and the party’s alleged “civil war” to the “train wreck” that is, allegedly, the Affordable Care Act.

And liberals helped lead the pivot.

Don’t get me wrong: The problems with Healthcare.gov are real, and disturbing, and must be fixed asap. (Think Progress has a dispassionate assessment here.) But excuse me if I believe the president knows that without my telling him. It’s like watching the 21st century version of the rise of the Democratic Leadership Council, and I feel the way I did back then: On the one hand, yes, it’s important for Democrats to acknowledge when government screws up, and to fix it.

On the other hand, when liberals rush conscientiously to do that, they only encourage the completely unbalanced and unhinged coverage of whatever the problem may be.

It was predictable that the media would go nuts about this today, given that they’ve spent so much time having their noses rubbed in how insane the GOP has become, after trying so hard, for so long, to ignore it. It feels like a law of nature. Nature abhors a vacuum; media nature abhors a false-equivalence vacuum. I feel like I saw it start on Thursday, when the New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza, a writer I like and admire, tweeted something farcical:

Who will be more discredited this year: conservatives for pushing us to brink of default or liberals for failure of health care exchanges?

— Ryan Lizza (@RyanLizza) October 16, 2013

more
http://www.salon.com/2013/10/21/liberal_pundit_fail_rush_to_attack_obamacare_site_only_aids_unhinged_right/

[msongs]

1. Obamacare is NOT liberalism, it is Heritage Foundation/Romneycare in a clean diaper.....

Medicare for all is liberalism

[DonViejo]

3. Walsh isn't saying ACA is liberalism...

did you bother to read the article or just have the need for a knee jerk reaction to your interpretation of the headline's meaning?

[phleshdef]

5. I think you need to look up the definition of liberalism.

It doesn't matter where certain aspects were thought up, there is absolutely nothing conservative about expanding Medicaid and giving others aid to buy something based on a progressive income scale. There is also nothing conservative about placing more regulation on private companies with the intention of forcing them to somewhat behave themselves. And I don't see how there is anything conservative about providing money to open thousands of free clinics all across the country.

I'd love to live in a country where the so called conservatives want to do things like I've just stated. It would be a pretty awesome country to live in.

[BluegrassStateBlues]

2. Liberal pundits attacking the finest piece of progressive legislation in 100 years.

Maybe it's time they retire and do something more useful.

[louis-t]

4. That's ok, right wing hysteria is fun to watch.

And, when the thing takes off (it will), it will be even more fun to watch their collective amnesia about how against it they were.

[NCLefty]

6. Constructive criticism is not a bad thing.

The web site is clearly having some fail. It will be fixed. It's not indicitive of the overall success of the ACA in any way. Saying, "Hush, hush, everyone, pretend we're doing awesome!" when we're clearly not is silly. Constructive criticism should be welcome, and there's nothing, NOTHING we can do to make the right-wing extremists hate the ACA, Obama, or us any more than they already do :p