Now They Tell Us

by digby

CNNs Rick Sanchez was all confused about why so many people might suddenly be in favor of the HCR bill when they thought it was a bad idea before. Blitzer explains:

Well, you know, when people are asked, we did that poll CNN Opinion Research Poll, that said, “you like this health care bill or not like it”, we just assumed, a lot of us, that the people who said they didn’t like it didn’t like it because it was too much interference, or too much taxes or whatever.

But if you take a closer look at people who didn’t like it, about 12% of those people who said they didn’t like it they didn’t like it because they didn’t think it went far enough. They wanted a single payer option, they wanted the so-called public option, they didn’t like not from the right, they didn’t like it because it wasn’t left or liberal enough.

That’s how you got 50% of the American people who said, “we don’t like this plan.” But only about 40 or 38% were the ones who said it was too much government interference.

That’s so interesting, don’t you think? Maybe Blitzer should put something in the suggestion box about that.

All we’ve been hearing for months now is that the “American people” don’t like the bill because it’s a government takeover. The Republicans turned that into their entire rationale for opposition, claiming that the Democrats are going against “the will of the people” and somehow usurped the Democratic process. And here it turns out that it’s only the Republicans and a few conservative “independents”, 38% or so of the country, who think the bill is a government takeover.

That’s quite a different story don’t you think? One that might have been told before now by the news networks? It might have changed the whole damned debate, actually.

Blitzer admits that they just “assumed” that everyone in the country held this wingnut view. After all, the pictures showed a bunch of angry middle aged white people screaming about socialism, and they look like their perception of Real America, so why bother to drill down into the numbers any further?

This is a perfect example of the village advancing its narrative of a great conservative majority that doesn’t exist. It’s a pathology with these people.

Update: To be clear, I was aware of this. I wrote about it. The fact that Blitzer and the gang failed to make this clear to their audience is the problem. It may come as a surprise to people, but I don’t reach as many people as he does.

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