-By Warner Todd Huston
All the mud-slinging that’s fit to print is apparently The New York Times’ revised motto if a recent editorial attacking a pair of video ads that raise questions about Obamacare is any indication as the Times decides to spend half its editorial attacking the character of some donors to the group that put out the ads instead of sticking to the issues.
The ads were put out by Americans for Prosperity, a group that counts as donors a pair of famous conservative brothers that serve as the left’s biggest boogiemen: the Koch brothers.
The Times spends its first four paragraphs attacking the Kochs on a personal level. Calling them liars, employing class warfare against them, and saying–get out your tinfoil hat, here–they hide their real agenda because it is just soooo evil.
In fact, I almost feel compelled to spell Koch Brothers with a capital “B” in brothers as the phrase has become a noun to the left in their effort to demonize the pair. And, interestingly, as the Times spends so much energy on excoriating the conservative philanthropists it must be noted that the pair are not in control of the ads or their content. The ads were put out by Americans for Prosperity, a group to which the Kochs are but donors–major donors, sure, but not wholly controlling donors.
Oh, the paper does finally get to refuting some of the points in the two AFP ads, but even there they unleash liberal trope instead of cogent analysis.
But as the “paper of record” falls all over itself to take Obamacare’s promises at face value without spending much effort to really looking at the facts, even President Obama’s own administration has lost confidence in the federal takeover of our healthcare system.
As the Washington Times points out, “Even the administration lacks confidence in Obamacare, or it wouldn’t be delaying the employer mandate. Nor would the Department of Health and Human Services be sinking many millions of dollars on high-dollar public relations firms to gild the facts. It wouldn’t be hiring ‘navigators’ to guide the public through the paperwork nightmare.”
There are, indeed, many aspects of Obmacare that many are belatedly realizing are detrimental to our healthcare, not amendable to it. We are losing jobs because of it, full time workers are being demoted to part timers because of it, people are losing their job-sponsored insurance, and the oft repeated claim made by Obama that “we can keep our doctors if we like them” is turning out to be the prevarication that critics said it was all along.
As the Tim Phillips, AFP’s chief, points out, many of Obama’s promises have already been broken and Obamacare isn’t even fairly implemented.
Many promises made about ObamaCare have already been broken. The administration itself is delaying large parts of implementation for fear of political backlash–fueling even more questions and uncertainty. We feel it is important to provide education on the true consequences of government intrusion into the private healthcare decisions of families, and provide a counter to disinformation that’s out there.
As every day passes it is becoming clear how much of a jobs-killing mess Obamacare has become–only 9 percent of small businessmen are supportive of the law–but for the Times its all honey and roses… and an excuse to attack their favorite monsters under the bed, Charles and David Koch.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, Wizbang.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
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