Never Underestimate Your Opponent’s Sincerity

Mark of New Jersey

Mark is a Founding Editor of The League of Ordinary Gentlemen, the predecessor of Ordinary Times.

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4 Responses

  1. greginak says:

    Ambinder is only parting hitting the marc, heh, on the criticisms he has faced. There is plenty of anxiety about health care reform. Some of it is based on bald-faced lies, ex. reform will lead to forced euthensia, the press has been loathe to ever just call a lie a lie. I’m not talking about shades of opinion, policy or political belief. They tend to go for the one side says the world is flat , the other says it round, we report , you decide. There simply are things the press can say is crap, but they wont’.

    I don’t think people can’t see the reform protests as sincere. The critism is the press will take the protesters solely at face value, without noting that they are following a script set by lobbying organizations. The press will say “wow look at all that heat. Obama is really in trouble” and then avoid taking about, you know, actual health care reform since it is boring. They will cover the heat and not the substance.Report

  2. Dave says:

    Greg, don’t you see how illogical it is to say that the only ones protesting healthcare are only doing so because they are paid and following a script? Do you really think nearly everyone supports what has been put on the table and the only ones who object secretly support it, but are objecting to it because it’s their day job to do so? I think you are looking at a reality distortion field as people can genuinely object to something – it doesn’t mean they’re closet supporters who only object because they are paid to.Report

  3. greginak says:

    Dave- who is saying that?. there is plenty of anxiety over reform. Some, of that is being stoked by out right, deliberate lies. the press doesn’t want to just say something is a lie.

    It is also true that highly paid lobbying groups (freedomworks, for one) are making a strong push against reform. that is generally fine. But they are also producing scripts that detail many of the actions being done be the most raucous protester and their tactics ex, shouting down speakers, etc. I find some of the tactics like aiming to disrupt townhall meetings to be over the line. But the point about the press is that even though they know the loudest protests are scripted to a degree with loud mouths bussed in from different areas, they will not say that. they will report it as if the screamers are only concerned citizens without any of the background.Report

  4. ChrisWWW says:

    Greg has it exactly right. The nebulousness of the reform legislation makes it hard to write with any degree of certainty about what the bill will or wont do. But I think the media can be pretty sure it won’t be designed to kill your grandparents or force us all to have abortions.

    Similarly, the media can look at the different proposed laws and say that Democratic claims that the law will fix the financial problems with Health Care are also liars.Report