Has the media ever turned so fast and so aggressively against something before?

[Proud Liberal Dem]

I remember the Clintons' efforts to reform health insurance back in 1993 and fierce and aggressive opposition and pushback to the plan from within the GOP and the media materialized and coalesced pretty much immediately and, in the end, helped along by "Blue Dog" Dems, the plan essentially went nowhere fast. In fact, I can't recall it being brought up for a final vote let alone even make it out of any committees.

Flash foward to now, I actually thought that President Obama and Congress had been making steady, albeit slow, progress towards passing reform that meets the principles outlined by President Obama at the outset and bills are actually getting reported out of committees and Pelosi theoretically has the votes to get something passed in the House. The major delay, of course, has been the Senate (as usual), which has been engaged in a lot of negotiations and discussions to attempt to address Blue Dog and GOP *concerns* but even there I had the sense that some progress is/was being made and I have, overall, been fairly optimistic that we will see some kind of reform by the time Congress recesses for the year. Although there has certainly been opposition to the emerging/probable plans, the central debate has seemed to have been whether or not to push for single-payer or for a more limited "public option"- as President Obama has been proposing.

Starting this week, however, it seems that the media and GOP have suddenly changed the overall tone and narrative of the debate to something much more dramatic and serious by declaring that health care reform is now in peril and that even the future of Obama's Presidency and his ability to get things done is even at stake based on spurious and questionable *polling data*. The GOP, led by people like DeMint and Inhofe aren't even concealing their glee over the possible death of health insurance reform this year and the boost they believe that such a failure will give them for next year's midterm elections, DeMint even going so far yesterday as to have his own "mission accomplished" moment and declared that President Obama has been *defeated*. All this despite the fact that the GOP essentially has NO plan (or at least a plan that they might not bother releasing :eyes:) and that they are so focused on killing any kind of health insurance reform simply for political gain.

Harry Reid has made things even worse for health insurance reform prospects by declaring that there will be NO vote in the Senate for health insurance reform before the upcoming August Recess. I can only hope that he is doing this so as to give people an opportunity to turn the screws on their Congressmen and, especially, Senators and to dispell the notion that the Dems are trying to "ram something through" and "not listening to Republicans" :eyes: In the end, giving them some more time may, in retrospect, may be a good thing if, as President Obama said, they continue to seriously and genuinely work on health insurance reform, it gets more Dems on board with health insurance reform, and/or provides further impetus for President Obama and Reid to give up on "bipartisanship" in the US Senate and work on getting something through with or WITHOUT Republican support.