It’s becoming increasingly clear that after 21 days of the Healthcare.gov train wreck, President Obama’s media – with the exception of MSNBC, of course! – are not interested in carrying his water regarding the website’s failure.
During Monday’s press briefing, ABC’s chief White House correspondent Jonathan Karl told a defensive press secretary Jay Carney, “You can’t really charge people a fine for not getting health insurance if you don’t fix this mess” (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):
“Given all the problems we have seen with people trying to enroll in this program, is the White House going to be delaying the mandate?” Karl asked.
When Carney basically said, “No,” Karl pressed: “Well, why not? Why not delay? I mean you’re going to charge people a fine for not enrolling.”
Carney then went on for several minutes with – as you might imagine – White House talking points leading Karl to marvelously say, “You can’t really charge people a fine for not getting health insurance if you don’t fix this mess, if you can’t get the website to work, can you?”
Carney sputtered saying that he’s already answered leading Karl to interrupt: “I don’t understand the answer though. If the website’s not fixed, will people still have to pay the fine?”
Unfortunately, three times wasn’t the charm for Carney never really answered the question.
Nevertheless, it sure is nice to see the Obama-loving media pushing back against the spin the White House is doing regarding this train wreck.
(HT Mediaite)
