NBC calls the public option a "fetish"
By John Amato Thursday Sep 10, 2009 6:00amThe Villagers always find a way to attack progressives. Here's NBC's 'First Read,' that Chuck Todd is all about says this:
*** Fixing the public option fetish: But the speech also will be a failure if progressives -- Obama’s second audience tonight -- are still obsessing over the public option a week from now. We've said this before and we'll say it again: Obama never made the public option the focus of his health-care ideas, in the primaries or in general election. In fact, he never uttered the words "public option" or "public plan" in his big campaign speeches on health care. But there is no doubt that the public option has fired up the left, and how he sells them near-universal coverage and lower costs -- even if it means no public plan -- could very well be the trickiest part of tonight's speech. Indeed, that the White House allowed this to become the be-all, end-all on the left ("Public option or die!") remains a mystery. On TODAY this morning, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said that “there can be no reform without adequate choice and competition,” but didn’t say that choice and competition had to come from a public option.
You will never hear anything like this said about conservatives. Passionately supporting a piece of legislation that we consider vital to real health care reform is now considered a fetish by NBC. WTF is that?
Craig Crawford:
NBC News calls the public option a "fetish." Providing insurance to Americans who cannot afford or obtain coverage is a fetish? A fetish? Have things gone so awry that health care for all is considered a deviant concept. Seems to me that big media's knee-jerk defense of the status quo is the real fetish.
Craig nails it...in a good way that is and without a spanking reference that would be considered un-serious by the beltway elite.
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I AM going to tell you...I TOLD YOU SO!!!
My reaction?
"I will NO LONGER VOTE FOR ANY MAJOR PARTY.
EVER. NEVER EVER AGAIN.
BLOW ME!!!!"
I won't be reading your idiotic reactions.
I'm so hurt.
and, BTW I love my President!
last night during the President's speech. He should have been sitting next to Congressman Wilson. Here is another sample from Liberal AND Proud:
"Call the Progressive Caucus and tell them...Fuck you, Eat Shit and DIE.
You vote for this big bag of shit..we will make you pay."
I should have made my source more clear.
Wow...Ricky...do you want to publish my greatest hits album!
... he may remind you how much he does not care about what you have to say by memorizing your posts!
ricky!
You are not that surprised that a mega corporation like GE-NBC-MSNBC are against the public option and talk down about it, now?
I hope not. After all, this is the same network which had Reagan under its employ years before he became president as well as supporting the war on Iraq without asking any real tough questions.
I expect nothing less from the corporate M$M.
I am a bit disappointed in some of the tepid to negative reactions from some on the left.
What a combo
Can I supersize that combo?
that the Progressive Blogosphere is on the phone with their contacts to complain about this sellout of our wants and desires.
No...maybe they'll have a big boondoggle getaway to discuss it. GOOD TIMES!
Adults wearing diapers with prostitutes is a fetish. Spanking your lobbyist mistress is a fetish. Caring for those who are less fortunate than the ruling class is NOT a fetish.
The rethugs NOT caring for those who are less fortunate IS very "fetish like" as they get off on being hateful and uncaring jerks.
Okay, I EW'ed myself . . .
Caring for those who have less than those in the ruling class is apparently some kind of sin.
This kind of idiotic propaganda that passes for journalism reminds me why I threw my TeeVee in the trash.
That is indeed a strange word to use. My dictionary gives one meaning that says a fetish is something that abnormally excites erotic feelings. I can't speak for anyone else, but the thoughts of public option does nothing for me personally. Surely not in a fetish sort of way. Maybe I'm not saying or thinking of it correctly.
fetish about inappropriately using his vocabulary.
If you tied chuck's hands to his sides he wouldn't be able to say a word. Without that right hand flying around he would be mute.
So...do Olberman and Maddow have the spine to attack their own network?
They do all the time.
fetish
fet·ish [féttish]
or fet·ich [féttish] (plural fet·ich·es)
n
1. magical object: something, especially an inanimate object, that some people revere or worship because they believe it has magical powers or is animated by a spirit
2. object of obsession: an object, idea, or activity that somebody is irrationally obsessed with or attached to
make a fetish of neatness
3. psychiatry object arousing sexual desire: something, for example, an inanimate object or nonsexual part of the body that arouses sexual excitement in some people
[Early 17th century. Via French fétiche “charm, sorcery” from, ultimately, Latin factitius “made by art, artificial” (see factitious).]
Microsoft® Encarta® Reference Library 2003. © 1993-2002 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
...and who's this no-name "Chuck Todd" character?
Never Been Correct is what the NBC stands for and Chuck is their cartoon mascot.
News Benefitting Conservatives
his name says it all. .. chuck. todd. if only.
blah blah blah . .
Liberation? Truth?
LOL
Yeah, you never hear the likes of Chuck Todd and his disgusting ilk say something like, "There is no such thing as a death panel. There never was and there never could be." The say crap like, "Everybody is scared of how much Obama is spending and the deficit this and the deficit that." They never say that the Republicans have been driving up the the debt since Reagan and finally the chickens have come home to roost. The never say that Obama has been forced to run up the debt even higher because of the policies of the Republicans over the past 30 years. They will never say that the asinine war that the Republican Bush and Cheney got us into would have paid for healthcare for everybody but these yahoo Republicans decided that a war that we didn't have to fight was more important than your healthcare. Yeah these Chuck Todd and David Gregory types are one of the main causes of this screwed up country.
"Yeah these Chuck Todd and David Gregory types are one of the main causes of this screwed up country."
I couldn't agree more!
"Ezra Klein is on the teevee (MSNBC) saying that the public option is not important to health care reform. Good to see him finally admit he does not care about the public option.
Additional classic moment - insurance industry hack cites Ezra Klein's defense of insurance industry on show with Ezra on it."
Would anybody like Chuck Todd ever say, "The Republican Party has a tax-cut fetish?" It's worth saying, because there is something to it. A fetish is a magic object, something which holds power. A voodoo doll, for instance, is a fetish. From the way Republicans treat tax cuts as the answer to every problem, I think it would be safe to call it a fetish.
I once went to the marché des feticheurs in Lome, Togo. It was quite a sight.
The tax cuts that Bush enacted would have paid for health care.
Oh darn.
Bummer.
... and his (Bush) two wars of choice
... and the massive Wallstreet bailout
All of the above items would have paid for health care many times over. In fact, proper health care PAYMENT reform (we are not reforming health care that much really) would lead to lower costs, so in reality we are not paying for health care reform as much as we end up actually saving money from the current system. So the whole "paying for health care reform" is a tad disingenuous IMHO.
However, when it comes to health care... we have to make sure we walk slowly and compromise on every single item, don't cha know?
They also say that with tax cuts small companies would hire more people. BULLSHIT. Small companies will hire people if they need them. They will not hire people if they don't need them. Let's see here. If I make widgets and I sell 500,000 of them and everybody I have are producing as much as they can but because i make good widgets I am now selling 600,000 do you think I will not hire somebody to help me make those extra 100,000 widgets because i didn't get a tax cut? It is really a stupid argument to say people would hire more people if they paid less taxes.
They hire less people for less wages and work them longer hours on a different continent.
is saying that the 80% of Americans who support a strong public option in health care are "the left" or "progessives"? Right? Are they REALLY sure they want to make that statement? Did they check with Rush Limbaugh first?
which of course includes progressives buried in the crowd somewhere.
I'm sure war machine GE is perfectly happy shaping things to achieve their objectives. Which no doubt will be a big tent revival of the GOP in the next few years.
See if i have this straight now. Republicans want to make a stink about the public option and whether obama was born in the US to divert attention away from the passing of the legislation which would ensure medial care for all americans. all of this and the story of another republican legislator, who has decided to resign for the good of his party, Mike Duvall is relegated to a back page of the local paper. Duvall, who ran on a platform of family values, is exposed talking about his "hot affair in graphic detail" with a female lobbyist.
This is what we are up against and unless the dems take the proverbial bull by the horns and wrench it in no uncertain terms that even the heartland can understand, then this health issue is a dead issue. Hand over the keys to the car, the keys to the house and anthing else that smacks of being in control because if the dems cave on this issue, then all is lost. you have no leader, no party. DEMS THE BALL IS IN YOUR COURT. NOW WHATCHA GOING TO DO. I'm tired of waiting.
hell this scandal de jour with the republican party is so commonplace that i can't find a single reference to it even on C and L. I could be wrong on that point and please forgive me if i am..
are certainly amusing, sex between a state legislator and a hooker
(regardless of the degree of hypocrisy of the member) is not big news.
What I find newsworthy is that the utility company that hired the woman is now registering their prostitutes as lobbysists and requring them to comply with spending reporting requirements.
The story was mentioned in the Blog Roundup.
Yes you could be wrong. C+L did cover this (If this is what you are talking about).
CA "Family Values" Republican Michael Duvall Brags Over Live Mic About Spanking His Young, Lobbyist Mistress
nbc is fox jr. now.
I want to believe it so badly I deceive myself, forgetting reality.
My radical friend in the Bay area says, "Scratch a "liberal" and you'll find a fascist."
"Liberals" tend to have that ol' "We're going along to get along!!!" mantra, where true Progressives refuse to "go along to get along" (Patriot Act, B.S. 9/11 Omissions and Distortions Report, Military Commissions Act, FISA Legislation and now H.R. 3200 probably with NO public option in the end and the "Progressive Caucus" caving, as usual, because they want to keep their jobs).
You get the idea.
Michael Savage. The neocons started off as liberals. Do you get the idea?
call "intellegent design"? was that a fetish? no one calls it anything now, it's dead.
My goodness...from the sound of the comments in this thread...it seems that suddenly everyone is upset with the direction of the healthcare debate.
My oh my. Is something amiss?
Ever see him stroke it when he gets nervous?
Oh my...that's so immature.
We're progressive...we're supposed to take it and smile.
We need to stop being so extreme!
The healthcare bill has gone awry.
Doo daah dooo daah
The liberal fetishists should just go awaaay..
Doo daah dooo daay
it is better to hear the rebuke of the wise than to hear the song of fools.
like Chuck Todd, the idea of caring about other human beings really is laughable, and taken far enough (as in, actually caring about it) probably is something like a fetish. or at least seems like one to them. the idea is so foreign, so distant from their reality...
discomfiture or anxiety to ANY HEALTH INSURANCE PARASITE.
This is gonna be an enormous bonanza for the HIP.
Why is it NOT a mandatory tax, paid directly into the coffers of private, special interests?
Why is it NOT a mandatory tax, paid directly into the coffers of private, special interests?
Who said it wouldn't be?
On your tax return...a line called "CEO Executive Support Payment"
public money.
...bright light that he is, simply misspoke. Could he have been referring to the "pubic" option as a fetish?
Yeah, just a little verbal slip on chuckie's part.
To wander off the path for a moment, my sincere thanks go to whomever got the site's posts in the right order today. :)
if all our representatives start wearing diapers and cheating on their spouses, can we get OUR legislation passed?
Have a Fetish in common then.
Will my liberal fetish be a covered condition under the healthcare bill?
Or will I simply get government cheese and sent on my way?
Jack & Darlene's story regarding The Massachusetts State MANDATORY Health Insurance Reform Legislation (which Sen. Kerry recently said would be the template for the FEDERAL plan):
"I got out of state insurance so that my husband and I would be covered and not be fined.
We are insured with a company that is backed by retired Supreme Court Judges and Congressmen, who are out there for affordable insurance. It is called NAPA- National Association for Political Advocacy and Preferred Care Health Insurance out of Maryland.
Our insurance company just got a letter form the State of Mass. telling them that they do not meet the criteria for insurance under the laws in this State. They were never told what that criteria was, but they are legal in every other State in the union to sell insurance. We will be dropped on December 31 of this year.
With this company we have drugs, eye and dental and we are covered 80%. I could not find out when I called the Connector why I can't have this insurance and really no one will talk to me.
It seems to me that the State does not care HOW MUCH our health insurance will cost us--and that we have to play the game with the companies who they have allowed to sell insurance in this STATE--which I cannot afford.
All of this is Bullshit.
I have no idea what we will do. I will have to pay more a month for health insurance then my mortgage. Friends of ours are retired and they are spending $1,000.00 for the two of them for Health Insurance. What an injustice."
Comments???
... while providing an even larger market to the same parasitic corporations which put us in this position to begin with.
I mean, what is not to like regarding that "health care reform?"
Jack & Darlene's story regarding The Massachusetts State MANDATORY Health Insurance Reform Legislation (which Sen. Kerry recently said would be the template for the FEDERAL plan):
"I got out of state insurance so that my husband and I would be covered and not be fined.
We are insured with a company that is backed by retired Supreme Court Judges and Congressmen, who are out there for affordable insurance. It is called NAPA- National Association for Political Advocacy and Preferred Care Health Insurance out of Maryland.
Our insurance company just got a letter form the State of Mass. telling them that they do not meet the criteria for insurance under the laws in this State. They were never told what that criteria was, but they are legal in every other State in the union to sell insurance. We will be dropped on December 31 of this year.
With this company we have drugs, eye and dental and we are covered 80%. I could not find out when I called the Connector why I can't have this insurance and really no one will talk to me.
It seems to me that the State does not care HOW MUCH our health insurance will cost us--and that we have to play the game with the companies who they have allowed to sell insurance in this STATE--which I cannot afford.
All of this is Bullshit.
I have no idea what we will do. I will have to pay more a month for health insurance then my mortgage. Friends of ours are retired and they are spending $1,000.00 for the two of them for Health Insurance. What an injustice."
Comments???
Don't vote for Mittens next time.
This is part of the reason that states aren't the best place to make a health revolution. They can't subsidize those who can't afford it to the extent the Feds can.
If providing everyone health insurance is a fetish, providing health insurance for only some is perverted.
I'm listening to CBS, late news. Middle of the night. On comes aged Bob Schieffer, to pronounce that what we heard was the "death of the public option." Really? What speech are the Villagers listening to? I heard Obama say that he was committed to the public option, as a means of cost control and of offering people a choice. But then, he said as he always does, if someone comes up with a better way of achieving that, then he'd support that. Now, wait a minute: you mean we could set the rates for each upcoming year, like we do with utilities. No, that's not on the table. Then how else can we do it? Oh, co-ops (not) or putting it all off into the future. Sure, he gave the single-payers a brushback, but that's been clear from the beginning. I can't imagine this Congress going for it, especially not now. So where exactly was this "death of the public option" that supposedly took place? In whose brain? The president very forcefully said he supported it, but said, if you can come up with something better, I'll listen. Where's the "something better"? There isn't anything! Of course, we'll still have to fight to make it as strong as possible. Why are the Villagers so stupid? Must be congenital.
I felt very much the same way this morning when I read our local rag, “The Denver Post.” They pulled their report on the speech from the AP -- newspaper budget cuts being what they are. The story read like it was written by someone who watched a completely different speech than the one I saw. To quote from the article, “Obama spoke in favor of a provision for the federal government to sell insurance in competition with private industry. But in a remark certain to displease liberals, he did not insist on it, and said he was open to other alternatives that create choices for consumers.” The way I heard it, the President issued that last part as more of a challenge. If you think you can come up with another way of keeping the for profit insurance industry honest -- let’s hear it. Perhaps it’s only wishful thinking on my part, but I believe the President is going to push for a public option to be included in the final bill. Also, today I read he is going to meet with the two Senators from my state, the so far disappointing Mark Udall and our Governor’s pick to fill Ken Salazar’s seat, an equally disappointing Michael Bennet, along with the rest of the conservaDems led by that distinguished Senator and opportunist from Indiana who seems forever confused with the concept of what is means to be a Democrat, Evan Bayd. I know I’m not alone in these parts when I find myself embarrassed to be represented in the Senate by a couple of yahoos who need to be persuaded by the President of their our party to support meaningful healthcare reform. Most of us hoped when we worked and voted for Udall we were finally going to get someone back in the Senate after a long dry spell with relatively liberal if not exactly progressive views to represent Colorado. Boy do we feel we have been take for a ride.
I've always wondered if the 'other' alternative Obama refers to is a veiled reference to pending single payer bills HR676/HR1200, S703, or the Kennedy bill, among others. If so, he is very good.
http://pnhp.org/blog/2009/03/27/sen-bernie-sa...
Meanwhile, the GOP digs a rapidly deepening hole for themselves, simultaneously throwing their dirt in Dem's faces... and the backs of their shovels have Karl Rove's picture.
The Inner Sanctum of NBC News is the very portrait of the word "stodge." Look at 'em -- all of them multi-millionaires, telling us what's up. And excuse me, Tom Brokaw, sit and spin, boy. What a totally unmerited reputation.
Obama called on progressives and the media to stop holding up the pubic option as key to health care reform.
This is only the tip of the iceberg, prepare for the downpour against progressives and the public option.
fuck 'em.
They right is already developing some divine-inspired myth where the country is descended and founded by both God and Capitalism. Sounds like a classic totemic-myth to me.
made ready for his return by installing capitalism everywhere. Mark Sanford is crucial to His plan, and so is Ensign. The Spanker? Not so much.
Todd is such a right wing closet case butt licking right wing turd.
Chuck Todd. Slime ball. The Democratic majority should have never acquiesced on single payer. Hell, we have single payer military, medicare, and congressional health insurance. It is about time for all Americans to have unquestionable health insurance coverage from their government that seems to not flinch a bit in spending trillions on useless wars and no bid contracts benefiting war profiteers.
why wasn't single payer not even considered? Because the insurance companies do not want to be put out of business, even though they deserve it. $1.4 million per day just to stay in business? They can afford this? How much are they expecting to gain? Progressives pointing this out? Now we have to listen to corporate toadies and cretins criticizing us. The Pols would deserve at least a little grudging respect, if they just admitted the truth. And the veiled threats? Maybe the "camps" in New Orleans are for progressives.
Just make sure that each time you call your Senator or Congressperson, that you tell them you're not going to donate one dime to them until after the bill is passed with a strong public option. Remind them that they never even considered single payer so we've alrealy compromised. Then, remind them that we've raised $200,000 for Rob Miller who will challenge Joe Wilson in less than 24 hours and ask them if they'd like that same kinid of grassroots support. And let them know that we will not vote for any Dems who votes against the public option and will start looking for Obama's replacement right after the bill is passed without the public option. Then just hang up!
I saw a comment from some guy on anothr website this morning who said that he received a call from the DNC for a donation and he said he gave them un earfull! We have to keep the pressure on. I also just read that the DNC is now going to try to raise money off of this Joe Wilson thing. Many of us will be getting that email. I wonder if you can just send a reply insead? It would be nice to be able to tell them that since everything in Washington seems to have a price, ours is the public option. When the bill is passed the donations will return!
No universal healthcare. No money.
Simple...easy...just like healthcare reform...without the lunacy.
use that to tell them if there is no single payer, then there is no support from me, financial or otherwise. I have even received an e-mail back that said, "Fair enough."
Chuck, I hope you can forgive those of use who favor a public option (since single payer never made it to the table) for questioning the prospects for cost containment through "free market" competition, in an industry that is exempt from anti-trust laws, and whose member companies have virtual monopolies in many states.
I should think you'd find it ironic that liberals are fighting for real competition, while many on the right are fighting tooth and nail to deregulate the market further, without suggesting any substantive steps that would contain costs. The only specific idea we hear from the right is to allow insurance companies to sell policies across state borders, *under the laws of their states of incorporation*. Anyone who has paid attention to the devolution of the US credit card industry, in which the few credit card companies remaining have relocated to states with the most lax regulations, unleashing unprecedented exploitation of consumers in all risk categories, can recognize this as an obvious canard.
If you want an interesting angle for a story, think about where the *real* conservative policy position lies, and who is backing it. Hint: it's not the GOP.
Chuck Todd is being blatantly deceptive. The REASON "Obama never made the public option the focus of his health-care ideas, in the primaries or in general election" is because people, including Obama, were debating SINGLE PAYER at that time.
Chuck Todd is the front runner for the "Tim Russert Giant Tool" Award. Only David Gregory can stop him now.
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