Apparently most reporters at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Propagandists, lost the memo that Reuters got ("Obama Campaign: Obamacare Not a Bad Word After All"). Either that, or they haven't been paying attention their Obama For America emails.
OFA and President Obama himself both say it's now okay to call the fraudulently named Affordable Care Act which became law in March 2010 "ObamaCare"; the only matter in dispute is whether one should capitalize the "c." Jeff Mason at Reuters, which was already a bit late with its own report, tried to explain it all Monday evening, but "somehow" forgot what may be the most obvious motivation, namely that the "affordable" part of the original bill's title has been proven to be anything but:
If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
President Barack Obama's campaign has embraced the term "Obamacare," seeking to turn the negative name Republicans assigned to his healthcare reform effort into a positive branding tool just as the Supreme Court studies the law's constitutionality.
"Happy birthday, Obamacare," Jim Messina, the president's campaign manager, wrote in an email to supporters last week to note the anniversary of the reform becoming law.
"If you're tired of the other side throwing around that word like it's an insult, then join me in sending a message that we're proud of it," he wrote.
David Axelrod, the president's top campaign strategist, was more blunt.
"Hell yeah, I like Obamacare," he said in an email to Obama supporters, encouraging them to express the same sentiment by clicking on a link to a campaign website and typing in their email address and zip code.
It was not always this way.
The White House has referred studiously to Obama's signature legislative accomplishment as the "Affordable Healthcare Act" for most of the two years since it passed.
Meanwhile, Republicans coined "Obamacare" to tie the president to the law, which polls show is still very unpopular with many Americans.
Axelrod's email went out Friday evening. The servers at the Associated Press must be really slow.
In a report time-stamped early this morning, the wire service's Connie Cass wrote:
All four GOP presidential candidates now promise to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which they call "Obamacare." Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum calls it "the death knell for freedom."
In a Monday morning item about ObamaCare arguments occurring later that day at the Supreme Court, Jesse Holland wrote that the Affordable Care Act is "derisively labeled 'Obamacare' by its opponents."
It turns out that Cass and Holland didn't even read their own employer's related stories, or they would have known that in a dispatch time-stamped early Saturday morning, Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar quoted Obama himself as saying that calling it "Obamacare" is now okey-dokey:
"Call it Obamacare - that's OK, because I do care," he said to cheers at an Atlanta gathering. "That's why we passed it. I care about folks who were going bankrupt because they were getting sick."
As noted earlier, I believe that the biggest problem is that the word "affordable" in act's original name has turned into a laughingstock with the latest reports coming from the Congressional Budget Office. Leftists would rather we forget that anyone ever said that state-run health care would be affordable.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
