ObamaCare

On Monday, MSNBC's Martin Bashir tried to obscure the real policy issues in the contraceptive mandate row by harping on Newt Gingrich's past infidelities. On Wednesday, the afternoon host stocked his program with liberals who backed the Obama administration's position and complained Republicans were engaging in a "toxic waste of time" by calling for congressional debate on the contraceptive mandate. 

Today, with a "compromise" in the works that meets the approval of Planned Parenthood and NARAL, but not the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Bashir cheered the administration as though it had, with Solomonic wisdom, balanced the competing interests of "women's health" and religious liberty. 

"This time, they went too far," MRC President and NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell said of the Obama administration's rule to force Catholic institutions to violate their conscience on contraception, and he scolded the media for refusing to cover the controversy at first.

"The national news media has no understanding of what goes on in the Catholic church. This is massive inside the Catholic church, and think about how long it took -- it took CBS 10 days to do a story on this and they only devoted seconds to it," Bozell argued on the February 9 edition of FNC's Hannity, during his regular "Media Mash" segment. "It took NBC and ABC 17 days to arrive at this story. This is the biggest story dealing with an assault on religious freedom in the history of the Republic."

[MP3 audio here; video and additional transcript below the fold]

The front of Thursday’s New York Times National section featured Jennifer Steinhauer’s “Birth Control is Covered, And G.O.P. Vows a Fight.” Steinhauer portrayed the fight in cynical political terms, showcasing Republicans as being opportunistic rather than motivated by principled opposition to Obama’s requirement that Catholic universities and charities violate their religious beliefs by offering free birth control via their health insurance plans.

Congressional Republicans, seizing on the type of social issue that motivates and unifies their base, stepped forcefully Wednesday into the battle over an Obama administration rule requiring health insurance plans provided by Catholic universities and charities to offer free birth control to women, vowing to fight back with legislation to unravel the new policy.

Even Chris Matthews, who famously gushed about the "thrill" Barack Obama gave his leg, is troubled by the President's "frightening" decision to force Catholic charities to provide birth control through health care. Discussing the issue on Tuesday's Hardball, the host sputtered, "...How can you make the [religious] teacher pay for birth control without losing their authority, their moral authority?"

Matthews didn't seem sure how to broach the subject. Talking to E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post and Susan Milligan of U.S. News and World Reports, he warned, "It gets to that interesting point to me, which is frightening, when the state tells the church what to do." (Interesting?)

NBC Nightly News on Monday lifted its two-plus week blackout of the Obama administration’s decision to force religious institutions, such as Catholic hospitals and charities, to provide birth control coverage in health insurance provided to employees, but ABC’s World News and the CBS Evening News have still yet to utter a syllable about what has enraged people across the political spectrum while having plenty of time to champion Planned Parenthood’s attacks on the Komen foundation.

NBC’s Chuck Todd on Monday evening found a few seconds in a larger story to relay how the Republican presidential candidates “are hitting the Obama administration’s decision to require all health insurance plans to cover birth control. Many Catholic organizations had hoped for an exemption since the rule runs counter to the church’s doctrine. Today Mitt Romney’s campaign launched a petition drive to repeal the decision, and Newt Gingrich also sounded off.”

While most in the liberal media are downright ignoring President Obama's attack on religious institutions -- via the mandate that they cover contraceptives in their health insurance plans, even if doing so violates church teaching -- MSNBC's Martin Bashir mentioned the issue in today's "Clear the Air" commentary that closes his eponymous program.

Of course, true to MSNBC form, Bashir ignored the legitimate policy and religious liberty implications of Gingrich's complaint to dredge up Gingrich's past moral failings, namely his adulteries, as a way of fatally wounding the messenger and hence, Bashir hopes, negating the message [MP3 audio available here; video posted below page break]:

Editor's Note: What follows is a letter that NewsBusters publisher and Media Research Center president Brent Bozell sent to the presidents of the news divisions of ABC, CBS, and NBC as well as to CNN president Jim Walton. It has also been carbon copied to 10 leaders representing various Catholic and Protestant faith organizations.

The broadcast and cable television networks need to report the current, unprecedented assault against freedom of religion in this country, as well as the millions of Americans who would be left out in the cold by the Obama administration if it does not rescind HHS’s recently issued insurance mandate requiring contraceptive coverage.  As our statistics and analysis below outline, they are not, and it’s a glaring double standard.

When the Susan G. Komen Foundation announced on February 1 that it would no longer be donating to Planned Parenthood, the Big Three networks -- ABC, CBS, NBC -- rushed to the defense of the left-wing organization, which is the largest abortion conglomerate in the United States. Over the course of about 60 hours, ABC, CBS, and NBC emphasized the controversy with a whopping 13 morning and evening news stories. A  Media Research Center study found that the soundbite count was loaded: 76 percent of the quotes came from supporters of Planned Parenthood (35 in total). Only 11 clips or statements came from Komen representatives or new allies.

The broadcast network evening and morning newscast blackout, of the Obama administration plan to force health insurance offered by Catholic charities and hospitals to cover sterilization, abortion-inducing drugs and contraception without a co-pay, continued over the weekend, yet the ABC and NBC Sunday morning talk shows took up the topic.

Meanwhile, the media double standard in ignoring the ObamaCare imposition on religious institutions while jumping to defend Planned Parenthood when Komen pulled funding, is being noticed by media observers ranging from from Fox News to even a New York Times columnist.

As part of Obama-care “reform,” the administration is requiring religious organizations include free birth control in their employee insurance plans. Monday’s front-page story on the controversy by Denise Grady took the perspective of supporters of the rule change, which Catholics and others call an attack on religious freedom: “Ruling on Contraception Draws Battle Lines at Catholic Colleges.”

The jump-page photo featured Fordham law student Bridgette Dunlap (pictured right), who organized an off-campus clinic to provide birth control for students, and the story both began and concluded from her perspective, in defense of the change.

One of the Media Research Center's dearest friends and supporters, Mark Levin, has a new book out called “Ameritopia” which as CNSNews reports will debut at number one on the New York Times best seller list in four different nonfiction categories.

On Tuesday, the esteemed author and radio host spoke to NewsBusters by phone about the book's contents and how the media are assisting powerful utopian forces in America to undermine our Constitutional republic (video follows with complete transcript, don't miss spectacular book signing video at article's conclusion):

As part of a team of New York Times reporters fact-checking the presidential debate that took place Sunday morning in Concord, N.H., White House reporter Jackie Calmes once again baselessly claimed that expensive Obama-care is actually a money-saver, claiming GOP candidate Mitt Romney was false to assert otherwise. But the history of government cost projections (Medicare, anyone?) strongly suggest Calmes is wrong.

(After the GOP took the November 2010 elections, Calmes confidently stated as fact: “Republicans also say they will try to deny money to put Mr. Obama’s new health care law into effect, though they have not made clear what they would do to make up the cost savings that would be lost if they succeeded in repealing the law.”) Calmes posted Sunday:

ABC's Jonathan Karl Tuesday published a piece now prominently featured at the Drudge Report with a headline guaranteed to be the Obama-loving media's lead story concerning something Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich wrote over five years ago: "Gingrich ’06 Memo: 'Agree Entirely With Gov. Romney' on Health Care."

Inside the actual document uncovered by BuzzFeed’s Andrew Kaczynski, the former Speaker didn't "agree entirely with Gov. Romney" at all (emphasis added):

ABC presented an absolutely marvelous special Tuesday evening about Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords' (D-Ariz.) remarkable recovery from a gunshot to the head last January.

After 36 minutes of uplifting scenes involving the Congresswoman's therapy and road back to being able to walk and speak, host Diane Sawyer for some reason felt the need to bring politics into the program at its conclusion while taking a truly pathetic swipe at former Alaska governor Sarah Palin (video follows with transcript and commentary):

The Supreme Court has agreed to determine the constitutionality of ObamaCare after 26 states have appealed for it to do so. As explicitly stated in the 10th Amendment, the powers not specifically vested in the federal government by the Constitution are reserved to the states and the people, which ObamaCare supersedes by requiring nearly every American to purchase health insurance.

As Yuval Levin explains at National Review, though, opponents should not be so quick to lose focus of the future of our healthcare system. Do you think ObamaCare will be struck down? Read Levin's views after the break, and let us know your thoughts in the comments.

A new Kaiser Family Foundation poll finds the support for ObamaCare has dipped yet again, with just 34 percent of Americans favoring the president's signature health care overhaul.

What's more, just 52 percent of Democrats support the law, a troubling sign for President Obama a year before Election Day. Thirty-one percent of Democrats view the law either "somewhat" or "very" unfavorably.

We'll be monitoring the major networks to see how much if any attention they devote to the new numbers. Here's an except from Times Washington bureau reporter Noam Levey's October 28 story:

A Baptist minister from Washington, D.C., who in a sermon once indirectly compared President Obama to Queen Esther -- the biblical figure whose intercession saved Jews from extermination -- has been tapped by the president to "bolster support for President Obama among black and religious voters."

Washington Post religion reporter Michelle Boorstein gave readers of the October 21 Metro section a positive 13-paragraph profile of Rev. Derrick Harkins, "a popular D.C. pastor with a shaved head and a remarkable resume." Nowhere in her article did Boorstein examine how Harkins will address conservative religious voters' concerns over Obama's stance on issues such as gay marriage, gays in the military, and abortion, particularly taxpayer-subsidized abortion possible through ObamaCare.

A 19-year-old student with a learning disability was allegedly raped at this weekend's Occupy Cleveland rally, an extension of the protests happening on Wall Street.

WKYC, the local NBC affiliate, reported at its website Tuesday (video also follows with commentary):

Newsweek's Eleanor Clift made a rather shocking prediction on this weekend's "McLaughlin Group."

"Obama’s justice department took the, asked for healthcare ruling from the Supreme Court because they’re nervous that they’re not going to be in office a year and a half from now" (video follows with commentary):

Anchor Brian Williams led Tuesday's NBC Nightly News with a new report from the Kaiser Family Foundation about the rising cost of health care, direly proclaiming: "We're going to begin tonight with a crippling trend in America that simply cannot go on without taking entire families with it." Missing from the coverage was any mention of ObamaCare contributing to the increased costs.

In the report that followed, correspondent John Yang detailed how the new study, "says premiums for family coverage now average more than $15,000 a year, that's a 9% jump from 2010 and triple the rate of the previous's years increase." A sound bite of Kaiser CEO Drew Altman was included: "This is really the first time in as long as I can remember when we've seen a big jump in premiums at a time when wages are actually, not only flat, but actually losing ground."

In a Thursday morning post setting the table for last night’s Republican presidential debate in Orlando, New York Times chief “Caucus” blog reporter Michael Shear became the latest Timesman to falsely finger the Tea Party audience at a CNN debate last week as cheering on the prospect of letting a hypothetical man die for lack of health insurance.

Shear listed six things to watch for in Orlando last night. The last item:

Former New York Times Supreme Court reporter Linda Greenhouse really let her liberal feelings show in her online column Wednesday, “Breaking News: The Civil War Is Over,” in which she linked opposition to the constitutionality of Obama-care to the U.S. Confederacy.

Greenhouse, who notoriously delivered a left-wing commencement speech at Harvard in June 2006, while still a reporter for the Times, was also offended to the core at a bumper sticker opposing national health care: “I don’t understand the moral compass of the owner of the fancy car I saw the other day that sported the bumper sticker: ‘Repeal Obamacare.’”