Media Matters: Please give a warm welcome to our death panelists
The role of rationality in our republic was again called into question this week, as the newest conservative lines of attack against health care reform embraced an equally new level of madness.
As you surely know by now, Sarah Palin loves Facebook, and last Friday, she wanted to make sure her friends knew the terrible secret hiding in H.R. 3200.
"The America I know and love," she wrote, "is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of [President] Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil."
The idea that government bureaucrats will soon create "death panels" that will encourage the killing of Americans with disabilities as well as the elderly has now officially entered the conservative media's playbook. The notion is apparently rooted in an extremely selective reading of past writings by Ezekiel Emanuel, coupled with a total misreading of Section 1233 of the House health care legislation, which aims only to reimburse doctors who provide voluntary end-of-life counseling for those on Medicare.
As usual, media conservatives didn't let the facts get in the way of fear. Glenn Beck defended Palin's "death panel" statement on Monday, as did Fox News' Andrew Napolitano. That same day, Rush Limbaugh cited an op-ed that, while raising concerns about the end-of-life consultations, called euthanasia talk "rubbish." Then he ignored that statement and proceeded to talk about euthanasia.
The narratives continued unabated and were repeatedly given attention by Fox's Brian Kilmeade. (Fox & Friends, it turns out, is a bad place to go for accurate analysis of health care reform.) Beck dismissed the unconvinced, warning that they would "laugh all the way to the death panels," and Ann Coulter said that Emanuel was on her "death list." Beck and Limbaugh also revisited the Nazi theme of the previous week, equating the principles and tactics of the Third Reich to those being employed by congressional Democrats and the media. When the Senate Finance Committee indicated that the end-of-life counseling provision would be removed from its version of the legislation, The Fox Nation impartially reported the news by declaring victory.
By the way, in case you had any doubt about how hard the conservative media are working to defeat health care reform (and I know you did), just take a look at this study Media Matters for America conducted. Over a two-day period (August 10 and 11), we tallied up the guests on Fox News who discussed health care. The result: 10 supported progressive reforms, and 63 opposed them. As always, fair and balanced.
So what's the good news?
Despite it all, there was actually a host of accurate coverage concerning health care reform this week -- a reminder of just how shockingly irresponsible most conservative media outlets are. ABC's Kate Snow dismissed the end-of-life controversy as misinformation started by Betsy McCaughey, and Joe Scarborough put the smear out to pasture as well. The "death panel" assertion was further debunked by CNN's John Roberts, MSNBC's Dr. Nancy Snyderman, David Shuster, and Willie Geist, NBC's Anne Thompson, and ABC's chief medical editor, Dr. Tim Johnson.
CBS and NBC also ran stories illustrating the urgent need for health care reform, and CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta addressed the right-wing "rationing" canard, explaining how rationing occurs all the time under our current system. There was even pushback against the claim that Democrats were advocating a "Canadian-style" system.
Sadly, there was also some backsliding. USA Today falsely claimed that the "estimated cost of a health care overhaul" would be $1 trillion, and one CNN report cited Heritage Foundation research while ignoring estimates from the CBO. Most telling was an ABC piece that contradicted the network's own reporting and portrayed the end-of-life issue as still being an open question. It was a classic example of the mainstream media's desire to avoid criticism by presenting both sides of a story -- even when one side doesn't make any sense. Let's hope this Sunday's Meet the Press won't follow suit (David Gregory has promised it won't).
Don't show me the money!
There was an encouraging development in the ongoing campaign to get hate off our public airwaves. After a host of progressive groups, among them Media Matters and ColorOfChange.org, publicized Beck's recent rant accusing Obama of racism, multiple companies announced that they would no longer advertise on his program -- among them: ConAgra, Roche, Sanofi-Aventis, Radio Shack, GEICO, Travelocity, and Sargento. Reflecting on the development, The Washington Post's Jonathan Capehart said that it might "pump the brakes on some of these wild statements." We can only hope.
Anti-democratic Democrats continue hosting public forums
Town hall protests continued this week, all of which were given extensive coverage by Fox News and other conservative outlets (respectful meetings were ignored). Andrew Breitbart attempted to blame any past or future violence on Democrats and their thuggish union allies, while Fox's Megyn Kelly allowed protester Mike Sola to claim that Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer had sent goons to his house to intimidate his family. No, there simply aren't any provocations coming from the right these days. "[W]e need to be very, very careful," Beck warned his audience while appealing for calm. "Somebody's going to do something stupid, and it will change the republic overnight." Nor does Lou Dobbs want anyone to misinterpret his assessment of Howard Dean ("[H]e's a bloodsucking leftist -- I mean, you gotta put a stake through his heart to stop this guy"). When a guest criticized him for calling Dean a "bloodsucking liberal," Dobbs defended himself. "I called him a bloodsucking leftist," he repeated. And just for good measure, Beck and Bill O'Reilly derided an 11-year-old girl's question at Obama's town hall in New Hampshire. Just a normal day at the right-wing office.
Conservatives, seeking to exploit the town halls to full effect, also aimed to portray Democrats as being anti-democratic. In a Monday op-ed, Pelosi and Hoyer made a simple declaration: "Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American." It seemed clear enough -- if you attend a town hall, you shouldn't shout people down. But that's not how the right -- as well as the mainstream media -- spun it. The line was twisted, and both representatives were attacked for calling the protesters "un-American." Dobbs chastised their "hypocrisy." Kilmeade repeated the distortion, as did Politico and Fox's Gretchen Carlson and Steve Doocy. Even NBC's Chuck Todd and NPR's Diane Rehm got into the mix. Sean Hannity, of course, wasn't to be topped, saying that "we've had hardworking Americans called Nazis and brownshirts and un-American by Nancy Pelosi." It seemed as though the CNN's Errol Louis and MSNBC's Contessa Brewer were the only ones who took the time to read the editorial before commenting on it.
Barack Obama is just like Richard Nixon
How, you ask? Why, they both have enemies lists, of course! That's how Beck and Dobbs described the White House's request that supporters pass along emails containing erroneous smears about health care reform. Indeed, Rush nailed the administration's true intent: It's a "snitch website" he declared. It's Obama's "own exclusive, private domestic spying program" -- forget that whole FISA thing. In order to ensure the program's secrecy, the president chose to publicly address the attack during a town hall meeting. Then he asked for everyone's Social Security number and something embarrassing he could blackmail them with.
Down the rabbit hole
At a few points this week, words were exchanged that simply don't fit the rubric of normal conservative misinformation. Specifically: Michael Savage again warned the public of the "internment camps" that Obama is now readying for his political opponents; Hannity derided the "sick, psychotic, twisted individuals in their underwear in a basement" who monitor Fox and right-wing talk radio (he means us!); Limbaugh once again dismissed a report on the growing threat of right-wing militia violence (because there were no consequences the last time that was done); and Beck explained that health care was not a God-given right for all Americans -- not unless Jesus himself is conducting the physicals.
But in the end, it was Beck who truly broke new ground when he said something that was so crazy that even his panel of yes-men were left speechless. He's really hitting his stride.
This week's media columns
This week's media columns from the Media Matters senior fellows: Eric Boehlert asks why the media don't care when conservatives cry "Nazi" (only when liberals do), and Jamison Foser reminds us that facts matter.
Don't forget to order your autographed copy of Eric Boehlert's compelling new book, Bloggers on the Bus: How the Internet Changed Politics and the Press (Free Press, May 2009).
If you use the social networking site Facebook, be sure to join the official Media Matters page and those of our senior fellows Eric Boehlert, Jamison Foser, and Karl Frisch as well. You can also follow Media Matters, Boehlert, Foser, and Frisch on Twitter.
This weekly wrap-up was compiled by John V. Santore, an associate at Media Matters.
So tell me republicans/conservatives. What is so bad about being prepared? My wife and I, even though we're only in our 30's, have done this already, because if something unfortunate happens, we don't want any misconstrued ideas about what either of us wants done.
WTF? Why is this even an issue? It's not mandatory, it's voluntary, and the thing is, they wrote it into the draft bill so that it would get PAID for.
Congrats on taking care of things, I've been procrastinating despie being closer to the Death Panels than you.
It's not only what's in the 'bill in process' that concerns people who think. The 'cost savings' that proponents are touting (and are a part of the bill), mean cutting care somewhere down the road. (Unless you are so naive to think that medical care will cost less once the government is in control.) And how will that care be cut? There will have to be rationing, and that rationing will have to be determined somehow. Ezekiel Emanuel (along with others) is exploring the options. He's not advocating 'Death Panels" but he is saying that some sort of decision making entity will be necessary. Palin just effectively named them.
The RATIONAL response to the Obamacare initiative is that the government has no business in health care. Period.
The U.S. government is far from perfect but we seem to have enough faith in how it handles the military as proved by the hundred of billions we fund it with every year without much complaint. I put my faith in the feds to offer a plan that expands health care to as many Americans as possible and prevents some of the worst excesses of the insurance industry. If it means canceling GWB's ill-conceived tax cuts so be it. Leaving it to the private sector is a mistake and will result in higher profits for them at the expense of the public which has always been their strategy. I have too many friends who are hard workers, have families, who can not afford healthcare and have employers who do not offer it.
The reason that so many people are shouting is because they feel like Congress is not listening to them. They stayed at home during the election because they thought that McCain would be the same as Obama. They did not expect things to go like this and now they feel like they are getting screwed.
Congress is supposed to listen to there constituents.
The military is of course required, and necessary, but is such a large one that necessary? We spend more on our military than something like the next 5-7 countries, combined.
People would be heard, if they'd stop shouting. They're shouting nonsense (the ones that are yelling people down and all). They had a chance to be heard, as you put it, but what did some of these folks do? They went there, disrupted meetings, and then caused NOBODY to be heard.
Congress does listen to its constituents, it's just that ones yelling the loudest are fortunately, not the majority.
Care is already cut on a daily basis.
Care is already rationed.
Decision making entities already exist, as in, the folks at insurance companies that can, and will tell you what they will, and will not cover.
I think the insurance companies have no business in the health care industry. Period.
The insurance companies are beholden to their shareholders, and or owners of the company (if they're private). The government is beholden to us, and can be more easily made accountable than a private, or even a public company.
Taxes were indeed mandatory, from the start of our nation.
It was sickening.
Well, Simple Sarah, the America I know and love calls out liars and hypocrites. Like you.
And then on his death bed, of course, he had a mea culpa.
Can you give us some examples please? Because, there is an entire website (which you seemed to find OK) with examples from the right wing / conservatives.
Sorry, but I neither love nor hate Palin, I think she's a waste of time. She not informed, refuses to become informed and a bald faced LIAR to boot!
There are NO death panels in ANY bill and Palin KNEW IT!! Palin simply wanted to keep her face in the news, so once again SHE CHOOSE to trot out her child and involve HIM in her political game!
Then later she'll whine about the media attention on her children.
The one thing Plain has CHOOSEN to forget is she had her own Healthcare Decisions Day.
Here's one of Palin's healthcare declarations:
WHEREAS, one of the principal goals of Healthcare Decisions Day is to encourage hospitals, nursing homes, assisted living facilities, continuing care retirement communities, and hospices to participate in a statewide effort to provide clear and consistent information to the public about advance directives, as well as to encourage medical professionals and lawyers to volunteer their time and efforts to improve public knowledge and increase the number of Alaska’s citizens with advance directives.
WHEREAS, the Foundation for End of Life Care in Juneau, Alaska, and other organizations throughout the United States have endorsed this event and are committed to educating the public about the importance of discussing healthcare choices and executing advance directives.
Surprise! Sound like what's currently available through Medicare AND what is in the House bill as well. No "death panels" to be found!
Here's the full text Sarah Palin, Governor of the state of Alaska, do hereby proclaim April 16, 2008, as: Healthcare Decisions Day in Alaska, and I call this observance to the attention of all our citizens.Dated: April 16, 2008...
This needs to be repeated because sometimes there are more than just two sides to a story. Most issues are too complex to be broken down into just two sides. In this case we seemed to have a false and absurd analysis given equal time. Why? Some of it might be political because a good chunk of our politicians and public have been trained to buy into this type of distorted interpretation, no questions asked. Another possibility occured to me when watching the nightly news last night. The vast majority of ads were drug/pharma ads. It is interesting to see who is supporting our news media during this debate.
The so-called conservatives are having meetings and organizing for a campaign to flood e-mail members of Congress asking them to vote NO on health care reform. Why can't progressives do the same. We know how to e-mail, write letters, make phone calls, boycott, etc. Why aren't we doing it? Power of the people.
I have called fifty senators and house members to say I am for a public plan and the people I've spoken to told me that most of their calls are in opposition.
Or they are only advocates for "death panels" proposed by republicans!
Before the 'reform' has even been put in place, the Obama team is figuring out how they will handle rationing. Every time you hear a government spokesman say 'cost-savings,' you need to realize that they mean less care. But instead of that decision about reduced care being made between doctor / patient / family, it will be made by government panels; thus Palin's "Death Panels."
Obama's efforts to trivialize this issue with his "pull the plug on Grandma" quote is disingenuous and will only inflame the issue rather than defuse it.
There has NEVER been any talk of "Rationing' health care NOR any talk of finding ways to cut health costs by denying anyone health care.
One idiot mentions something you take out of context and the next thing ya know, you Teabirthers are all over it as though that is the last word on the subject.
AND NO NO NO NO everytime a spokesman says cost savings they are NOT talking about less care.
Try really getting into rational thinking mode before typing.
Then try listening to someone besides Boss Limbaugh, Hannity, and the other jackoffs in the rightwing media.
Get a clue.
Dr. Emanuel is a graduate of Amherst College, receiving his masters of science from Oxford University in Biochemistry. His M.D. is from Harvard Medical School. He holds a Ph.D. in political philosophy from Harvard University. In addition, in 1987-88, he was a fellow in the Program in Ethics and the Professions at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.
Dr. Emanuel is "widely published on the ethics of clinical research, advance care directives, end-of-life issues, euthanasia, the ethics of managed care, and the physician-patient relationship. Dr. Emanuel's articles have appeared in The New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, Journal of American Medical Association, and many other medical and ethics journals. His book, The Ends of Human Life, has been widely praised and received the Rosenhaupt Memorial Book Award by the Woodrow Wilson Foundation.
Dr. Emanuel served on the ethics section of former President Clinton's Health Task Force, the National Bioethics Advisory Commission, and the International Advisory Board on Bioethics of the Pan American Health Organization. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, UCLA, and Brin Professor at Johns Hopkins Medical School.
Sara Palin, after graduating from Wasilla High in 1982, won the Miss Wasilla pageant. She finished third in the 1984 Miss Alaska pageant, receiving the "Miss Congeniality" award and a college scholarship. After attending five different colleges in a six year span of time, she received a B.S. in communications with an emphasis in journalism from the University of Idaho in May 1987. Palin was a member of the Wasilla, Alaska, city council from 1992 to 1996 and the city's mayor from 1996 to 2002. After an unsuccessful campaign for Lieutenant Governor of Alaska in 2002, she chaired the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission from 2003 until her resignation in 2004. She was elected Governor of Alaska in November 2006 and resigned 2 1/2 years into a 4 year term.
Oh, she also ran on the losing McCain/Palin or the Palin/McCain ticket for President in 2008.
Here's a quote from SEIU 2001 in Conn. (updated to "counter"):
Action: Opponents of reform are organizing counter-demonstrators to speak at this and several congressional town halls on the issue to defend the status quo. It is critical that our members with real, personal stories about the need for access to quality, affordable care come out in strong numbers to drown out their voices. (emphasis mine)
The utter hypocrisy opf the left is mind boggling. And the tone-deaf arrogance of the left & its leadership to real anger at this 'healthcare' boondoggle is going to play extremely well for the GOP in 2010.
I'm getting sick of code words like "take my country back",and "true Americans".
WTF is a TRUE American?
In case you've forgotten, people including Democrats and Liberals, died for your right to make stupid a** remarks, but it doesn't mean you have to!
The public sector has failed at making health care affordable, and available for all, because they only want to profitize health care, which is fine, but it means that lots of people won't get covered because they won't make money off of them.
Nobody is talking about doing away with private health care. That seems to be a problem for you to realize. The private insurers are still going to be there, and as Obama has said many times over, you like your current health care, what happens? You get to keep it.
Obama is a centrist, he's not a far leftist, far from it, and neither is anyone in his cabinet. This Czar comment you make, tells me that you either dind't pay attention to what other presidents did over the last 40 years (starting with Nixon), or you listen to too much talk radio. Bush had as many "Czars" as Obama does. Did you have a problem with his Czars? If so, I apologize, it's just that I never heard anyone be critical of these positions before Obama took office.
Obama is being portrayed as some radical liberal, he's not even close.
The problem with these townhall meetings is not the questioning of your congresspeople, it's the yelling and shouting down so that nothing productive gets done.
The fact that you have to, or the fact that you bring up Obama's race tells me that you probably do care about what race he is. He didn't "choose" to be a black man, he was born that way. In the United States, in the time that he was growing up, and even today, he appears to be a black man (even though he had a white mother) so he is black. It's really that simple. He dind't "choose" to be black, that's just crazy talk.
Obama owes no apologies to the Cambridge police department. The officer did act stupidly in that situation, and Obama even said, he had no idea whether or not race had anything to do with it. He took sides because, again, the officer acted stupidly. And the homeowner also acted stupidly, but he was not in a position of power at the time, and was arrested for nothing more than being loud, and being in his home.
Wright is not some crazed man either. He's said some silly things, but you can't control the things your friends say. I'm sure you've had friends of yours who have said stupid things as well. Does that make them any less of a friend to you? Then again, Obama doesn't even speak with Wright any longer. And I'm sure you'll come back with the whole "he spent 20 years in those pews" stupid commentary, but can you show me, transcripts, or video, of another Wright sermon that is "radical" or "angry" other than the one we've all seen a million times (one that Obama was not even at)? I'm willing to bet, you can't.
If people from the left were showing up at tons of townhall meetings, and shouting down their opponents, I would have the same reaction. It's still stupid, and non-productive no matter who is doing it.
See? Now, can you say the same thing for your side?
The quote you provided was from 2001.
Where did you get this quote? Do you have a link? Do you have a link to show us where and when the townhall meeting took place? Which Congressperson was holding said townhall? If so, I'm pretty sure we could find out if loud and boisterous protesters showed up and shouted other people down.
http://patriotsandliberty.com/?p=6205
The original SEIU post is here:
http://www.seiu2001.org/Healthcare_Town_Hall_Forum_with_Congressman_Jim_Himes.aspx
The meeting either did not take place or was calm as far as I can tell.
And to eddross..,
Before you go off on a rant(too late) about 'union thugs' please explain your feelings about the organizations that are directing the disruptions of townhalls and have been doing so prior to August 6. By disruptions I mean shouting down the congressmen and not giving him/her or anyone else a chance to speak in order to make it pointless. I don't condone any attempts to drown out townhalls but your waving around of this union notice makes you look foolish to everyone. However do you expect us to hang our heads in shame over a union that wants to use bad tactics to counter conservative bad tactics? At the same time ignoring evidence of rightwing groups funded by insurance companies and organizing the misinformed to disrupt townhalls? Ain't gonna happen.
Luckily, my dad and mom, both in their 90s, had long since recorded advance directives. My dad died in May 2008 at 95, and was in great health literally until the last three weeks of his life. Then he caught pneumonia, and it was too much for him. He stopped eating. We were asked did we still just want to see him confortable, no feeding tubes, just IV nutrition. He sensed he was dying, but at least we all were able to spend time and say goodbye.
My mom, still here at 94, seems to be getting frailer, but has actually done pretty well in the last year. It's hard to say how she'll do.