Thursday, June 25, 2009

Infomercial = Obama filibuster?

Perhaps Wednesday night's ObamaCare infomercial did not turn out quite the way ABC News or the White House planned.

Look at what Jeff Poor at Business & Media Institute wrote:
Call this a teachable moment, but even with ABC’s best-laid plans to kickstart the debate about health care reform and not allow the “Prescription for America” special to become an “infomercial,” as many have complained – the president spent more than twice as much time as his questioners vaguely answering or not answering the questions asked of him. But the network consistently presented the event as part of the need to fix a "broken system." When asked, every one of the 164 hand-picked audience members said they felt that health care needed to be changed.
Obama answered questions in a "long-winded and vague" way, taking up 60% of the time allocated to the program:
The network also allowed him to dominate the program with long-winded and vague answers. Out of the 75 minutes the network dedicated over the two programs (commercials excluded), the president managed to take 60 percent of that time: 45 minutes to give 19 vague responses – not exactly the “dialogue” advertised by ABC.
You get the feeling at times this guy is just so full of himself such as his remark at the Monday press conference when he began an answer by saying, "I'm the President of the United States..." The humble factor is not there which makes the fact that Charles Gibson had to ask him to shorten his answers funny:
In fact, at one point, the president went on for four minutes and 33 seconds to answer a question about government interference, the “Big Brother fear” as the questioner put it and how it would be paid for. In the next segment Gibson pleaded with the president to keep his response to the next question shorter.
No Republican presence was allowed during this propaganda hour. The American people need to ask tough questions about universal health care and how a country whose back is already breaking with a heavy financial load will be able to pay for a $3 trillion program.

I will note that the older folks I know who lived through the Depression are hunkering down and preparing for another. One gentleman told me he is afraid this one will be worse than the last. Universal health care? Obama should be thinking about how to prevent this country from slipping into a financial abyss.

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