USA Today still pretending GOP plays a role in health care legislation
December 23, 2009 10:54 am ET by Eric Boehlert
Here's today's news headline:
GOP unlikely to derail health care passage
Gee, you don't say.
What's so odd is that the headline is indicative of the way the press has portrayed the GOP throughout the health reform legislative process. Meaning, the Beltway press keeps pretending the GOP is a player, that the GOP is relevant to the health care reform. That the GOP could somehow "derail" the legislation.
The truth for months, of course, has been that Republicans members of Congress have been spectators, albeit heckling spectators. The GOP is in such a deep minority status that members don't have the votes to "derail" anything, even if virtually every member opposed health care reform, which is the case.
Yet the the press (cue USA Today) keeps pretending the GOP is right in the thick of things. That the GOP is somehow engaged in the process. That GOP leaders are knee-deep in negotiations. Instead, the GOP, having adopted a radical obstructionist strategy, has offered no tangible support and no real alternatives. Like I said, legislatively Republicans are bystanders in the health care debate. (Just like they were with the stimulus bill.)
So why do reporters pretend otherwise?
They are busy being the party of "NO".
It doesn't even appear to matter what the issue is, if the Dems are for it, they are against it.
You also cannot ignore the constant barrage of bullsh*t coming out of the GOP Propaganda Machine. Even though most of us know its bullsh*t, it has had its impact, and probably accounts for at least some of the spinelessness exhibited by the Democrats in the Senate.
Without FOX and the Teabaggers of Summer, we might have gotten a public option. They managed to intimidate enough Democrats to weaken the bill substantially.