Early this morning, I pulled a couple of quotes from an AP article about Hillary’s latest health care proposal and used them in this post. An hour or so later, I received an e-mail from a friend indicating that one of the quotes could not be found in the article.
Sure enough, when I went back to the link, the story had been bowdlerized. The Orwellian quote from Hillary minion, Neera Tanden, had disappeared. At 8AM this morning, the AP link contained the following passage [emphasis added]:
The centerpiece of Clinton’s plan is the so-called “individual mandate,” requiring everyone to have health insurance — just as most states require drivers to purchase auto insurance. Rival John Edwards has also offered a plan that includes an individual mandate, while the proposal outlined by Barack Obama does not.
“It puts the consumer in the driver’s seat by offering more choices and lowering costs,” Neera Tanden, Clinton’s top policy adviser, told The Associated Press. “If you like the plan you have, you keep it. If you’re one of tens of millions of Americans without coverage or don’t like the coverage you have, you will have a choice of plans to pick from and you’ll get tax credits to help pay for it.”
Clinton, the Democratic front-runner, has already laid out proposals to improve health care quality and reduce costs. She was to release her universal health care plan in Iowa, the first voting state.
Apparently, Hillary’s toadies at AP belatedly noticed the Orwellian verbiage to which I and Mark Finklestein independently called attention. And, like the Ministry of Truth, the AP has produced a reality more amenable to Big Sister. The passage now reads as follows:
The centerpiece of Clinton’s plan is the so-called “individual mandate,” requiring everyone to have health insurance — just as most states require drivers to purchase auto insurance. Rival John Edwards has also offered a plan that includes an individual mandate, while the proposal outlined by Barack Obama does not.
Clinton, the Democratic front-runner, has already laid out proposals to improve health care quality and reduce costs. She was to release her universal health care plan in Iowa, the first voting state.
The second of three paragraphs in the original passage has disappeared from the story, and Neera Tanden has, as far as the AP is concerned, become an unperson.
OK. Now do these people give you the creeps?
UPDATE: I just got another e-mail pointing to this UPI story, which uses the same quote AP originally attributed to Neera Tanden. The UPI article, however, attributes the quote to Hillary’s web site. The plot sickens!
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