As if to confirm a widespread suspicion that the establishment media coordinate closely with the Democratic National Committee, America’s “news” organizations are speaking with one voice on the health care strategy outlined by Rudolph Giuliani.
The party line, it would appear, is that Rudy’s strategy should be dismissed because it is similar to that which President Bush outlined in January and is, therefore, not a serious plan. The word went out from the DNC as follows:
Democratic National Committee spokeswoman Karen Finney said, “the Giuliani-Bush health care plan has already been rejected by the American people.
It wasn’t long before the party line was being parroted by most of the major “news” organizations. The Washington Post, for example, produced this:
Health-care experts said the plan resembles a proposal from President Bush in his State of the Union speech this year.
Newsday was also in strict compliance with the approved DNC talking points on Rudycare:
Rudy Giuliani leapt into the health care debate yesterday with a plan like one … President George W. Bush floated earlier this year without success.
The Myrmidons at the Los Angeles Times also chimed in with its version of the party line.
The idea is very similar to one President Bush has pushed — to absolutely no avail in Congress.
Even Jonathan Cohn at TNR, usually not so transparently partisan, obediently repeated the official propaganda:
Giuliani’s general approach to reform–which, from the looks of it, is closely modeled on an idea President Bush proposed in January of this year.
Ironically, Mark Santora at the NYT failed to read the memo. Predictably, he has been taken to task by the usual suspects for his failure to parrot the proper talking points. I predict that he will soon be delivering pizzas for a living.
The consistency (and rapidity) with which the media have repeated DNC talking points on his health care strategy suggests that they are worried about “Hizzoner.” They are evidently looking forward to a new Clinton era, and apparently have no intention of providing honest reporting on anything he proposes.
Comments 5
Gee, before accusing all of us of being DNC shills, might you consider another possibily? Maybe we all reached the same conclusion — that Giuliani’s plan is a copy of Bush’s — simply because, uh, it’s true?
I can tell you that the similarity was the very first thing I noticed — largely because I had written about Bush’s plan when it came out in January. (Which you would have known, if you’d bothered with even a cursory check of my past articles.)
Look, you’re entitled to your own opinion on whether it’s a good idea or not. That’s a worthy and important debate, in which I — for one — would be happy to engage.
Or is this your way of ducking that debate, because you think you can’t win it?
Ok, gotta go know. Howard Dean is on the line with my marching orders for tomorrow. [That’s a joke, by the way, in case somebody stumbles across this in Google.]
Posted 02 Aug 2007 at 10:59 am ¶Maybe we all reached the same conclusion — that Giuliani’s plan is a copy of Bush’s — simply because, uh, it’s true?
Two points:
I’m not much on vast conspiracies, Right or Left, but the highly formulaic verbiage, combined with its rapid deployment by so many sources, is pretty suspicious. If it had come from a couple of random experts and taken a few days to be picked up by the establishment media, the whole thing would have been much more plausible.
That Giuliani’s plan is similar to Bush’s isn’t the test of its usefulness. The ideas themselves should be what matters. Reading the commentary on Rudycare, it’s difficult to escape the impression that ANY proposal from Hizzoner or Bush would be similarly denounced regardless of its content.
Oh, and say Hi to Howard for me.
Posted 02 Aug 2007 at 1:38 pm ¶You’re right, the ideas matter. But rather than debate the merits, or lack thereof, of the ideas, you’re off on the old “liberal media” line. The reason it matters that they’re essentially identical to Bush’s is that Bush couldn’t get them through a Republican Congress. So why does anyone think Giuliani can get them through a Democratic one?
Posted 02 Aug 2007 at 9:20 pm ¶I would rather see Giuliani having a tough time getting good ideas through than Hillary having an easy time getting bad ideas passed.
Posted 02 Aug 2007 at 10:17 pm ¶Haha, yeah, 6 years of bad ideas being easily passed will hopefully be enough for this decade.
Posted 03 Aug 2007 at 10:00 pm ¶Post a Comment