Media's Credibility (Not Public Option) Is What Is Dead

[kpete]

Chris Weigant
Posted: October 26, 2009 08:22 PM

Media's Credibility (Not Public Option) Is What Is Dead

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid today announced that the public option (Charles Schumer's "opt out" plan, in particular) will be contained in the bill he moves to the Senate floor. This is an absolute shock to the media, since they have been obsessing over only one bill out of a total of five that congressional committees have passed to date -- the one produced by Max Baucus' Senate Finance Committee. Baucus' bill (which took the longest to appear) is the only one of these five bills without a public option. But, in apparent widespread confusion as to how Congress actually works, the media has been pushing the "public option is dead" theme for so long, it's no wonder they're so astonished at today's news. Because it proves (yet again, I might add) that the media's credibility is really what should have been pronounced dead months ago, and not the public option.

A quick trip through Lexis/Nexis (searching on "public option is dead") proves this beyond any doubt. Republicans offered this up as a piece of "conventional wisdom," and the media swallowed the story hook, line, and sinker all summer long. While there were voices in the blogosphere's wilderness saying "there are bigger fights ahead, Baucus' committee is a minor skirmish," most of the mainstream media watched the hotheads yelling at town hall meetings, and took an enormous leap to reach the conclusion that the public option was deader than a doornail. Forgetting, I suppose, that a scattering of angry, vocal protesters are not who writes the actual legislation. Or something. At this point, it's hard to even fathom the depths of the media's distractibility on crucial issues facing our nation.


Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-weigant/medias-credibility-not-pu_b_334767.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-weigant/medias-credibility-not-pu_b_334767.html

[20score]

1. A big K&R

[Orrex]

2. Professional wrong-guesser Bill Kristol was blathering about this yesterday

He declared outright that he didn't think that a healthcare reform bill would make it to the floor at all, and he didn't think that it would likely contain a public option in any case. For once, even the typically sessile Mara Liason and Juan Williams were moved to call him on it.

The two-fold meme appears to be "the public option is dead" and "the public option is back from the dead."

Anything to keep the horserace going.

[jtrockville]

11. He's good for something. You just have to pretend it's "opposite" day.

[CTyankee]

3. Can't wait to hear the backtracking from Joe and MIka tomorrow morning on Morning Joe.

They were all over the "trigger" this morning...oh, my, they're gonna have the trigger and get ready for it, have to please Olympia ya know...yadda, yadda.

What a bunch of crap. These people are just beyond belief. They go with these stories as if they are big "experts" and then they're caught with their pants around their ankles...jeez, what a bunch of jerks...

[sandnsea]

4. Uhm, wouldn't that mean HuffPo's credibility is dead too?

What the hell have they been doing? What has most of the blogs, left or right, been doing?

This would be like FreeRepublic taking the MSM to task for the Iraq War lies.

[Windy]

5. arianna was still on KO stating the Stein was right etc...

She is no better than the rest of the media in trying to stir up controversy to boost ratings/hits. She is becoming unbearable.

[Orrex]

7. 94% of HuffPo's content is written by Deepak Chopra

[glitch]

6. With a very few exceptions, the media's credibility died decades ago.

People keep propping up its corpse and hauling it around anyway though.

[Orrex]

8. Hmm. I'm thinking that they could make two utterly awful films based on that premise...

[glitch]

10. Lol. I never did see those movies, but I've heard about them. nt

[ThoughtCriminal]

9. Basing perception of Healthcare reform based on townhall

shriekers and teabaggers is like going to a KKK rally in 1964 and concluding from their opposition that Civil Rights legislation was dead.

[KharmaTrain]

12. Shows How Little People Understand This Process

And it wasn't just the corporate media. For months people here were anguishing about Public Option and willing to fear the worst rather than understand the poker game that is going on. I predicted we'd get to this point and now the game really begins. It's all been about getting the 60 Senate votes to invoke cloture that would push the bill to the 51 vote threshold. While I'm sure the administration would love to get 60 or more votes, they saw (as many of us knew from the get-go) the rushpublicans would be of no help and sure to obstruct...thus the game was to come up with a plan that all Democrats could agree on and then once it gets to the Senate floor, those who wanted to vote against some or all could do so and not hold up this much needed and important reform.

[FrenchieCat]

13. That cause the media didn't figure out that the only folks against

a Public Option were the same ones who lost the last election.

The media tried to do their corporate master's bidding and kill the public option
by attempting to influence the public....it just didn't work....
just like showing Rev. Wright on Television day after day didn't work.

Some day, they'll get a clue...but till then, whatever they say, know that the opposite is true.