Obama staging a sign of trouble for health care?

I would say yes … but its really up for you to decide. First … this from the Washington  Examiner:

With Congress away on recess, President Barack Obama is stepping up his sales pitch for health care reform, tapping online social media in a new end run around the traditional news filter.

At a town hall today in Annandale, Obama will answer questions from a live audience, and also from users of popular online communities including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

“The president wanted to continue the conversation that we started last week with town halls,” said White House press secretary Robert Gibbs. It’s “a continuing conversation about how to move health care reform forward.”

Although the format opens up the opportunity for questioning Obama to a potentially limitless online audience, the White House controls which questions are asked.

One of those carefully filtered questions comes from a woman named Debbie. Here’s the short version but it is a very compelling story. Debbie contracted cancer, was treated under her insurance, lost her job and now that the cancer is back she has no insurance.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DFLSHp7bcM

But Fox’s Major Garrett says Debbie was well know to the President long before this forum.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1b6X8oixIE

The question could be, if the staff knew Debbie and her problem, why didn’t he help her before this? A better question is, if you have to resort to set up stories like this one to get a universal plan pushed through … is your plan in deep trouble?

If you would like to see the entire exchange with Debbie … it’s here, from the Daily Beast.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7NwsMPMZSg

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Jim Vicevich

Jim is a veteran broadcaster and conservative/libertarian blogger with more than 25 years experience in TV and radio. Jim's was the long-term host of The Jim Vicevich Show on WTIC 1080 in Hartford from 2004 through 2019. Prior to radio, Jim worked as a business and financial reporter for NBC30 - the NBC owned TV station in Hartford - and as business editor at WFSB-TV in Hartford for 14 years while earning six Emmy nominations and three Telly Awards.

6 Comments

  1. twain1 on July 2, 2009 at 5:31 am

    The most important factor of this healthcare discussion was that it was staged. The problem at hand is the fact that it's acting as a gateway for the government to control more of our freedoms. The poem, "First They Came…" attributed to Pastor Martin Niemoller, makes a statement providing a much broader view of what our nation is becoming. Staging such a scene in order to convince others of this "great idea" is disgusting!



  2. Anne-EH on July 2, 2009 at 8:51 am

    As truth about PBO's healthcare program comes out, more people are starting to realized that they are being sold a bill of goods that will not live up to what they expect. Look for an increasing angry backlash against efforts socialization of medical care.



  3. skepticalcynic on July 2, 2009 at 11:46 am

    If "mr change" is going on twitter, facebook and utube pleading his case for socialized med, he's preaching to the choir….



  4. Ellyon on July 2, 2009 at 5:04 pm

    Even Helen Thomas has this con artist figured out. Got to love her.



  5. Dimsdale on July 2, 2009 at 5:13 pm

    Ms. "Exhibit A" is a perfect example of a shill.

    "A shill is an associate of a person selling goods or services or a political group, who pretends no association to the seller/group and assumes the air of an enthusiastic customer. The intention of the shill is, using crowd psychology, to encourage others unaware of the set-up to purchase said goods or services or support the political group's ideological claims. Shills are often employed by confidence artists. The term plant is also used." -Wikipedia and others.

    I think "confidence man" is a perfect definition of our president.



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