Morning Joe sidekick Mika Brzezinski hurled a favorite liberal accusation at Republicans on Thursday’s episode. She started by presenting it merely as a question that she and Joe Scarborough received often during his book tour: “One of the points [Joe] makes [in his book] was illuminated in a question that we get everywhere we went, which is why do Republicans not want Americans to have health care? That’s what they think.”
Nicolle Wallace, a former Bush White House staffer, unfortunately accepted the premise that Republicans don’t want people to have health care. The supposedly conservative guest replied with just the answer Brzezinski wanted: [Video below. MP3 audio here.]
"And the Republicans’ ability to answer that question is every bit as important as the Obama administration's ability to fix everything that's been wrong."
If Wallace were interested in standing up for her party, she should have replied that Republicans do, in fact, want Americans to have health care. The question is how best to deliver health care to as many Americans as possible. Republicans just don’t believe ObamaCare is the best way to do it. There is disagreement about what exactly to do, but there are varying market-based plans floating around out there. Wallace did at least push back against the idea that Republicans have no health insurance ideas of their own:
"[L]isten, Republican governors have a whole lot of ideas. They have a whole lot of ideas about how Medicaid is administered, they have a whole lot of ideas about expanding eligibility for programs that already exist. So you can't malign the entire Republican Party as having no ideas for insuring people."
But this didn’t seem to resonate with Mika. She erupted in a mini-tirade against Republicans, and in the process restated that favorite liberal complaint:
"So in Washington, what you're left with in retrospect, if this gets fixed, is a president who botched a rollout but in total wanted Americans to have access to health care and somehow got it done, come hell or high water, and Republicans who don't want Americans to have access to health care and want Americans to continue to pay for everybody's emergency room costs."
In this narrative, President Obama is the great crusader fighting for the common man, and Republicans are the evil obstructionists who don’t care for the well-being of the common man. It’s not an accurate narrative, but it’s one that the liberal media continue to push, the Lean Forward network chief among them.
Below is a transcript of the segment:
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: But let me just say what is being left behind for your party, and I'll ask you the question, too. This is the question that gets asked to us on the road. I was just on book tour with Joe about the future of the Republican Party. His book, which writes about that, and one of the points he makes was illuminated in a question that we get everywhere we went, which is why do Republicans not want Americans to have health care? That’s what they think.
NICOLLE WALLACE: And the Republicans’ ability to answer that question is every bit as important as the Obama administration's ability to fix everything that's been wrong.
BRZEZINSKI: Because all they’ve been doing is making sure this doesn’t work.
WALLACE: Well, I don’t think that's fair. But the Republicans have to step into the spotlight now and advocate –
BRZEZINSKI: Wait a minute – you don't think that's true? Did you see what happened with the shutdown? They were making sure as best they could in every little bit of their power to shut this thing down.
WALLACE: Well, I think Republicans believe, as many Americans now believe, I think 61 percent of them, that the law is a bad idea. But Republicans have to propose an alternative for ensuring the un– and listen, Republican governors have a whole lot of ideas. They have a whole lot of ideas about how Medicaid is administered, they have a whole lot of ideas about expanding eligibility for programs that already exist. So you can't malign the entire Republican Party as having no ideas for insuring people. Republican governors are on the front lines of that. And I would agree that in Washington, Republicans don’t have a whole bunch of –
BRZEZINSKI: So in Washington, what you're left with in retrospect, if this gets fixed, is a president who botched a rollout but in total wanted Americans to have access to health care and somehow got it done, come hell or high water, and Republicans who don't want Americans to have access to health care and want Americans to continue to pay for everybody's emergency room costs. That's what people –
DONNY DEUTSCH: By the way, that was always the argument. The problem is his argument is not coming to fruition, and that’s the issue –
[crosstalk]
BRZEZINSKI: I don't think it's very good for the Republican Party either, the way it’s happened.
