Michelle Malkin » All Barack Channel wasn’t the first to pimp socialized medicine

All Barack Channel wasn’t the first to pimp socialized medicine

By Michelle Malkin • June 17, 2009 10:15 AM

Tim Graham at Newsbusters reminds us that ABC (The All Barack Channel) wasn’t the first left-wing TV network to host a government infomercial pushing government-run healthcare. NBC became Nothing But Clinton in 1994 — commercial-free and subsidized by the far Left Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to boot. Flashback July 1994:

NBC raised a lot of eyebrows by accepting $3.5 million from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for its two-hour, commercial-free June 21 health care special, To Your Health. Five foundation fellows served on Hillary Clinton’s secret task force, and when that secrecy became an issue, the foundation spent $500,000 for four town meetings featuring the First Lady.

In 1991, foundation president Dr. Steven Schroeder told The Chronicle of Philanthropy: “We are very conscious that fundamental change [in health] is not going to happen without government…Many of our recent grants have been predicated on the idea that we would get government involved.”

On CNBC’s Tim Russert May 9, Tom Brokaw said: “I can assure you that I wouldn’t be involved with that program in any fashion if it were being directed or if it were being engineered by a special interest group.”

Several conservatives (including MediaWatch publisher L. Brent Bozell) wrote to NBC President Robert Wright charging the grant “constitutes an appearance of partisanship.” In a phone conversation, David Bohrman, the show’s Executive Producer, gave Bozell his word the show would be balanced and pursue all aspects of the debate. But NBC earned the Janet Cooke Award.

The special, a series of pre-taped segments followed by discussions with on-stage panels and an audience at Washington’s Warner Theater, tilted in favor of pro-government spokesmen and failed to explore conservative policy options. Hillary Clinton was the sole guest for the first half-hour, referring to NBC’s anecdotes as proof of the need for the Clinton plan. On-stage panelists leaned two-to-one in favor of the Clinton plan or single-payer. Speakers from the audience also leaned to the liberal side by two to one.

***

Instapunk notes that CNBC and NBC — now the Nuzzling Barack Channel — goaded Obama into dissing Fox News — and created an appropriate new logo for the network. Click here.

Posted in: Health care

Printer Friendly

comments (24)

trackbacks (9)

See what others have said

Note from Michelle: This section is for comments from michellemalkin.com's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that I agree with or endorse any particular comment just because I let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with my terms of use may lose his or her posting privilege.

Trackbacks

Trackback URL

Comments

#722752

On June 17th, 2009 at 10:20 am, sonofdy said:

Its so nice to have a media that tells me what to think. I have to burn less calaries trying to do things like research and that pesky thinking for myself thing.
#722753

On June 17th, 2009 at 10:21 am, BlameAmericaLast said:

Well, I guess you have to look at it this way. All that effort, all that money, and in the end, nationalized healthcare didn’t happen.
#722756

On June 17th, 2009 at 10:23 am, PatriotRider said:

And are we like sheep? Like lambs being led to the slaughter? There may come a time, it may well be soon, that the good Christian folk take a stand a say, “No more!” Then we must not be bluffing.
#722777

On June 17th, 2009 at 10:35 am, Rogue Cheddar said:

The Left like nothing better than giving bad ideas 2nd, 3rd, and 4th chances. They live to consume like bloated ticks on the bewtocks of society. “Ah, the mewling spawn, how I despise them.”
#722783

On June 17th, 2009 at 10:45 am, ErinF said:

Ooooooh! Be careful Michelle! Using the words pimp and obama in the same sentence can be construed as racist! We can’t have that, now can we?
#722784

On June 17th, 2009 at 10:46 am, DBNinKY said:

Instapunk notes that CNBC and NBC — now the Nuzzling Barack Channel — goaded Obama into dissing Fox News — and created an appropriate new logo for the network.

Saw a snippet of the interview on Fox last night and thought there was symbiotic collusion in how Obama just happened to arrive at giving his defaming statement.
#722789

On June 17th, 2009 at 10:49 am, spaceycakes said:

I split the sheet with all 3 networks after their appalling behaviour during the Bush/Gore election in 2000.

Peter Jennings sticks in my mind as the worst.
#722802

On June 17th, 2009 at 11:03 am, reshas1 said:

http://abcnews.go.com/Site/page?id=3271346&cat=ABC%20News%20Specials
#722808

On June 17th, 2009 at 11:05 am, letget said:

I don’t watch ANY programs on nbc, cbs, or abc and have not for years. Not going to start now. I am so thankful for Fox news.
L
#722821

On June 17th, 2009 at 11:14 am, Elm Creek Smith said:

A pimp’s a pimp. Just because this one has a different name doesn’t mean anything.

ECS
#722833

On June 17th, 2009 at 11:27 am, DBNinKY said:

It’s one thing for Barbara Walters to ride around in a jeep with President Reagan at the wheel and for Diane Sawyer to give us a “loving-couple” look at George and Barbara Bush in the WH shortly before they left office – after all, these types of “warm-and-fuzzy” interviews offer a human look at our elected leaders and are all-but expected of a network at some point in any administration.

However, it’s another thing entirely for a network to advocate policy on behalf of an administration. That’s not warm and fuzzy; that’s propaganda, and ABC and Linda Douglas know it!
#722836

On June 17th, 2009 at 11:28 am, TexasEngineer said:

I just sent the following email to my local All Barrack Channel affiliate here in the Dallas area. I will be following up with their advertisers as well.

Thanks to your Masters at the ABC Network, your station and all of its advertisers will be boycotted by my immediate family and all of my extended family. I will be notifying any and all of your sponsers that I can of the boycott and tell them why their sales will be sliding.

You may thank your Masters at ABC for this boycott and let them know that is because ABC has decided to become the All Barrack Channel. This pandering to “The One” offers even more proof that the news media has become the State Run Media… Have you chosen your modern day equivalent to Joseph Goebbels yet?
#722847

On June 17th, 2009 at 11:37 am, tre said:

So they’re openly and unashamedly kissing Duh One’s feet, but they criticize Fox News as a tool of the Republicans.

I think I must have been transported to a parallel universe or something.
#722854

On June 17th, 2009 at 11:47 am, Dimsdale said:

We have officially moved from simply bias to outright Obama leg humping by the media.

They can’t even do their jobs anymore. And they wonder why people aren’t buying their lies (or their papers) anymore.

You won’t be missed.
#722855

On June 17th, 2009 at 11:48 am, spaceycakes said:

tre said: So they’re openly and unashamedly kissing Duh One’s feet, but they criticize Fox News as a tool of the Republicans.

You say that like it’s a bad thing!
#722857

On June 17th, 2009 at 11:50 am, pueblo1032 said:

REAL news persons and REAL journalists most certainly have their hands wrapped around the TOILET BOWL, and are PUKING their guts up… How any AMERICAN can say they get their news from the MSM is beyond me… Unless you are among the ranks of the SHEEPLE, you should feel sick to the soles of you shoes…
#722862

On June 17th, 2009 at 11:56 am, Ralph Gizzip said:

Why am I not surprised Clinton was “pimped” by a wood Johnson. Wasn’t that the whole purpose of his time in office?
#722875

On June 17th, 2009 at 12:07 pm, 24Klady said:

Haven’t watched the alphabet channels in years. It says volumnes about Obama that he is afraid of Fox News because they hit on him too hard. The man needs to grow a pair, suck it up, and do the job he was elected to do…& that includes giving interviews to all major journalists and media outlets, no just those that agree with you. If he had any substance he could take on the best of them and make his point. The fact he can’t says it all.
#722884

On June 17th, 2009 at 12:18 pm, hawkeye54 said:

The Left like nothing better than giving bad ideas ~~2nd, 3rd, and 4th~~ perpetual chances.

They don’t even give up on bad ideas after a 5th, 6th 7th…..well you get the idea.

The concept of socialized medicine will continue to plague us and crammed down our throats as long as we have socialists, or their useful idiots, in places of power and influence.
#722885

On June 17th, 2009 at 12:18 pm, tre said:

On June 17th, 2009 at 11:48 am, spaceycakes said:

It’s that now politically incorrect cliche of the pot calling the kettle black.

And I don’t recall ever hearing about Fox News doing reports from the White House during the Bush Administration.
#722908

On June 17th, 2009 at 12:34 pm, Ed Mahmoud abu al-Kahoul said:

George Staphylcoccus is ABC’s head political reporter. Boy George worked for the Clintons, and takes part in regular Demonratic Party strategy teleconfereces with Begala and Rahm-bo.

Should we be surprised? NBC let pMSNBC’s cheif psychotic, Keith Overbite, chair convention coverage.

The media liked liberalism decades ago, but now they are in bed with statist socialists, getting tingles up their thighs.
#722910

On June 17th, 2009 at 12:35 pm, Ed Mahmoud abu al-Kahoul said:

tre-

If only they could have gotten Karl Rove hired as head political correspondant the way the Demonrats did with Boy George.
#722911

On June 17th, 2009 at 12:35 pm, Ed Mahmoud abu al-Kahoul said:

I can spell “chief”, I just can’t always type it right.
#723309

On June 17th, 2009 at 5:16 pm, reshas1 said:

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/8/an-open-letter-to-our-nations-leadership

sign this petition and pass around to your email list..