Wolf Blitzer who is well known for caving in against right wing pressure did a piece on healthcare the other day called “the public outrage” over the public option.
The robotic Blitzer who doesn’t seem to realize that previous polling by his own news organization has shown overwhelming support for the public option, reports news related to healthcare reform like he is afraid a bunch of conservative crazies are going to slash his tires if he doesn’t do it their way.
Blitzer who’s knees tend to knock when conservatives attack, and will take whatever he thinks is the majority side at the moment, sounded like the messenger boy of opponents of healthcare reform when he interviewed Linda Douglas from the White House office of Health Care Reform. He tried to insinuate that there was little support for the public option and asked if Obama would settle for a bill that didn’t have it.
Since the public option is the center piece of healthcare reform and the dropping of it would be a major defeat for the Democrats and alienate them from their base, the question seemed more like Blitzer saying to conservatives, ” hey, don’t blame me, I tried”.It also flies in the face of previous CNN polls, but polls dont yell and scream and spit and that seems to be what makes Blitzer react the most.
At Obama’s Montana town hall Blitzer interviewed Randy Rathie one of only two questioners who opposed reform. There were at least 15 -20 other questioners, all supporting health care reform and the public option, but Blitzer chose to interview the one opponent which seemed to be his way of saying to conservatives, “please don’t hit me”.
If Blitzer believes that the farcical shows being put on at these conservative and Republican stuffed town hall meetings is reflective of the entire country, then he should stand up and repudiate as nonsense his own networks polling over the last two months ( and the CBS News poll as well) that say the public overwhelmingly wants the public option. That was reflective at both the New Hampshire and Montana town halls where Republican organizers couldn’t stuff the hall.
CNN did come out with a new poll the other day that showed an erosion in public support but as someone very familiar with market research, it would be considered worthless unless a follow up poll was done to ask people if they’ve changed their minds. If the answer was yes that would explain the change and that attacks by opponents were the reason even if the attacks were baseless. But if the answer was no then the poll would be worthless.
But giving people accurate information does not seem to be part of CNN’s job description, though they have a roving reporter named Ali Velshie who is trying to do a decent job but is throttled by the idiotic questions he gets asked by CNN anchors.
CNN has been doing a horrible job, probably the worst of the three cable networks, in reporting facts on the healthcare debate. Just how bad was summed up very nicely by CNN afternoon anchor Rick Sanchez who introduced Obama’s Montana town hall this way:
“This is make or break for the president. His job is to go out there and tell the American people the truth.”
Obviously it didn’t occur to Sanchez that if CNN were telling people the truth, maybe Obama wouldn’t have to, but its clear that Sanchez didnt feel that telling the American people the truth was something that fit the job description of anyone working at CNN. And that’s not news.