Thursday, September 10, 2009

About Joe Wilson . . .   [Mark Hemingway]

As for Representative Wilson's outburst last night, let me just say upfront that it was inappropriate and I'm glad he apologized. That said, a couple of takeaways:

1) I don't think all the media oxygen sucked up by discussing the incident helps Obama one bit.

2) The media's energetic spinning of the issue is once again revealing. I have a feeling MSNBC's First Read's take, as noted by Jonah below, is a nice distillation of the conventional wisdom the media is setting on.

That's to say the media will spend a lot of time baselessly speculating about how the incident will play politically without actually, you know, addressing the charge that the current health-care proposal will cover illegal immigrants. (And just to reinforce what Jonah's said about Sheehan — does First Read not remember that Sheehan got favorable publicity from the MSM for months before they decided to put the brakes on her crazy train?)

If the media ignores that question, well, good luck with that. I was at a huge health-care town hall last week with House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and, as I wrote then, "Easily the most animating issue of the night was illegal immigration." Those opposed to health-care reform are actually quite informed on this particular point and they know that without a good verification mechanism the bill will likely result in paying for health care for illegal immigrants. Is that an intended outcome of the bill or just a practical result of ill-defined legislation? Well, it's hazy enough that I'm not sure I'd throw the word "lie" around. But that goes double for the president who also called his critics on this point and others liars, especially since polls show that no one much believes many of the president's other central promises on health care.

09/10 11:42 AMShare