Health care reform is said to be in trouble partly because of those raucous August town hall meetings in which Democratic members of Congress were besieged by shouters opposed to change.
But what if our media-created impression of the meetings is wrong? What if the highly publicized screamers represented only a fraction of public opinion? What if most of the town halls were populated by citizens who respectfully but firmly expressed a mixture of support, concern and doubt?
There is an overwhelming case that the electronic media went out of their way to cover the noise and ignored the calmer (and from television's point of view "boring") encounters between elected representatives and their constituents.
It's also clear that the anger that got so much attention largely reflects a fringe right-wing view opposed to all sorts of government programs most Americans support. Much as the far left of the anti-war movement commanded wide coverage during the Vietnam years, so now are extremists on the right hogging the media stage -- with the media's complicity.[emphasis added]
Yeah, that's right E.J., that only happened 40 years ago.
Jeeezus. It is amazing that old E.J. never noticed the wall-to-wall coverage of the anti-war marches this past decade, especially when every opinion poll told us they made up a small minority opinion in the country. (Let alone the wall-to-wall coverage of the anarchist nuts that show up for every G-8, G-12 or World Bank meeting.) Maybe he fell asleep back in 2001.
Hmmm...so what are people saying about health care reform, based upon opinion polls? Well, it seems 64% don't think the reforms would help them. Hmmm...do people normally support things they think will not help them? Maybe E.J. thinks so, but I sure don't.
What is more disturbing is that Dionne fails to notice the only reason health care is a "crisis" in the first place is because the Democrats, with a complicit media's help, has been attempting to make it into one.
Isn't it amazing that only 3 percent ranked health care as a major concern as recently as this January? Dionne somehow missed that too.
Maybe he was asleep.
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