Inside Politics

YES, WE CAN

“Obama is still popular, but polls show the public losing faith in his policies,” Chicago Sun-Times columnist Steve Huntley writes.

“Another indicator was a ‘Saturday Night Live’ skit lampooning Obama for the major accomplishments of his administration - ‘jack and squat.’ If the honeymoon is ending with the American voter, it isn’t for obsequious elements of the mainstream media. CNN prostrated itself by fact-checking the ‘SNL’ comedy skit,” Mr. Huntley said.

“But that’s harmless compared to the virulent campaign against Obama critics carried out by the denizens of MSNBC. Its Obama acolytes seek to demonize opponents of Obama’s policies by focusing on most marginal corners of right-wing politics like, for example, the ‘birthers’ who deny Obama is a natural-born citizen. The larger scheme is to imply Obama critics are racists.

“That’s the backdrop to the story of Rush Limbaugh getting booted from a group bidding to buy the St. Louis Rams. He was smeared on CNN and MSNBC with false accusations of making two racist comments. He is an abrasive critic of Obama, so he must be racist, or so goes the left-wing story line. …

“Recently, an MSNBC personality accused the U.S. Chamber of Commerce of lobbying for policies that amount to being ‘treasonous to this country.’ Remember how liberals roared in outrage at any hint of their patriotism being questioned for criticizing the Iraq War? …

“The MSNBC blast against the chamber appears to dovetail with what the Politico newspaper reports is a White House and Democratic effort ‘to marginalize’ the business organization. That echoes the administration assault on the Fox News Channel: It says Fox isn’t a news organization.

“The White House trying to dictate who’s a news organization. Democrats out to gut a business group. Obama media allies damning Americans as racist, unpatriotic and treasonous. Is this the America Obama promised when he campaigned to end the cynical and divisive politics of the past?”

BOGUS POLL

Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway, writing in a blog at www.nationalreview, says polls purporting to show growing support for a health insurance “public option” are bogus.

“The Washington Post poll is the latest example of a ‘public poll’ in the past 2-3 weeks that curiously shows a growing number of Americans supportive of the ‘public option.’ AP and Gallup were others. This is agenda-driven polling,” Ms. Conway said.

“The fact is: Asking an ignorant public about the ‘public option’ is incomplete polling. It calls for a response to feel-good phraseology rather than a probing of underlying ideology. ‘Public option’ in health care is not so different from ‘campaign-finance reform,’ ‘Violence against Women’s Act,’ ‘revenue enhancements,’ and such.

“Our side has not done enough to discredit and expose the positive-sounding ‘public option’ for what it truly is: a government grab of one of the most intimate matters people face, and one about which most of them are presently content.

“Additionally, ‘private’ is the opposite of public, and privacy is an important word in the overall health care lexicon. We should message this aspect of ‘public option’ as well.

“The bogusness of these polls is also proved by President Obama himself, who is lukewarm on the inclusion of the public option and has suggested they would move forward with or without it. He must realize that good polling shows no such clamor for a public option. The great news there, of course, is the fire he faces from the Left (unions, Congressional Black Caucus) on this if public option is excluded or severely diluted.”

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