The View from Over There: US Healthcare Hysteria (from The Herald )

These are the first two paragraphs from an editorial of a UK newspaper on the health care reform debate.  The article is a must read, and it’s sarcasm is kind of fun, so click on the link when you get to the end to continue reading or just click on this link now and start on their sitewww.

America’s Democrats have never been adept at dealing with the emotional terrorism of the Republican right. The proposition Lincoln overlooked – that you can fool enough of the people enough of the time – always takes so-called liberals by surprise. They convince themselves that conservatives have a hot-line to the heartland, even when, as in the case of abortion rights, the connection is mythical. First Democrats become defensive, then they turn tail.

President Obama has not yet begun to retreat over health care, but he is ducking for cover. Facts that seem compelling to a rational man are being disputed, denied, or transformed into tests of patriotic loyalty. Obama’s popularity is declining. According to Gallup, opponents of reform outnumber supporters by 49% to 43%. And the right is howling triumphantly.

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via Obama Pays Price For Us Healthcare Hysteria (from The Herald ).

Alex Jones, director of Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on the Press, talks about how “the news of verification…is being supplanted by the news of assertion.”  I think he is right, at least in many media outlets.  Facts aren’t checked, another guest is simply called on to refute them and whoever has the argument with the most emotional resonance wins.  Right now, opponents of reform are winning.