It’s so bad that the New York Times is back to acting as Obama’s personal PR agent again:
So bad that the New York Times has to issue one of its patented awful editorial board op-eds in order to try to defend the law–and the administration that has botched its implementation. The whole thing is a laugh riot from soup to nuts.
The very title of the piece–”Insurance Policies Not Worth Keeping”–signals to the reader that the Times is fully prepared to cover up, paper over, and outright ignore the fact that President Obama and his political allies repeatedly and deliberately misled the nation by promising Americans that if they liked their health care plans, they could keep them. We are told that the president “clearly misspoke” when he told Americans that they could keep their plans in all instances; for the Times, “clearly misspoke” is a euphemism for “repeatedly consistently and deliberately told the exact opposite of the truth,” given that the prevaricators in this instance were political actors the Times approves of when it comes time to hand out endorsements (and when it comes time for Times employees to go to the polls and vote).
This talk about “clearly [misspeaking]” is about as blatant a signal that the Times is ready to engage in journalistic fraud and malpractice as is the opening paragraph, which tells us that the reason news reports are focusing on the cancellation of insurance policies–and the revelation that the Obama administration and its political allies lied to the American people–is that congressional Republicans “have stoked fear and confusion.”
As though the stories of cancellations and sticker shock themselves–told straight and without any congressional Republican lobbying for the stories to be told–were not enough to make Americans fearful, and as though the unbelievably malfunctions that have been suffered by the website are not enough in order to make Americans confused and outraged.
It’s an interesting logic behind the New York Time’s aggressive PR campaign. Obama clearly said Americans could keep their health insurance policies. But now his landmark law is not permitting them to keep those policies. But the new policies are better! Therefore, we should all ignore the fact that he lied and focus on the fact that he is forcing Americans to accept better policies than the ones they would freely choose if left to their own devices.
Surely we should apply this logic to everyone’s daily food choices as well. After all, what one eats tends to determine one’s health. And sexual choices too. It doesn’t matter what you happen to prefer, not when it is eminently clear that certain forms of sexual activity are healthier than others. Forget the closet and the fat farm, Obamacare serves as precedent to fine fatties and homosexuals if they insist on continuing to engage in their expensive and socially deleterious activities.
In any event, all of this is but a temporary sideshow. We are assured by Porky that all these reports of problems are mere strategery by the political supergenius Obama, who is simply suckering in those clueless Republicans for a few weeks, just long enough to befuddle them and amaze the general public when he reveals that the Obamacare system is working more slickly than a pair of greased penguins sliding over glare ice.
Obama is a cunning and masterful politician, though. Consider how carefully he chose his words to extricate himself from a briar patch that would easily ensnare less brilliant strategerists:
“President Barack Obama told his enthusiastic supporters Monday night
that he never promised what video recordings show him promising at least
29 times.”
Or perhaps having the entire mainstream news industry running interference makes one look smarter and more successful. Who can say?