On NBC's Meet the Press Sunday, PBS host Tavis Smiley spouted the tired media meme that the only reason Republicans are opposed to ObamaCare is because they hate the President.
Fortunately for viewers, The Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol was there to say, "If Nancy Pelosi or John Kerry were president, Republicans would have voted against Kerrycare or Pelosicare. It's not personal to President Obama" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
TAVIS SMILEY, PBS: But this is the problem: Whenever we have these Sunday morning chats, it's always about what's been poll tested. It's always about putting our finger up to the wind. Sometimes doing the right thing means--
BILL KRISTOL, THE WEEKLY STANDARD: I agree.
SMILEY: --doing the difficult thing. And sometimes you have to lead-- I think you always have to lead by a certain set of immutable principles. Civil rights at one point wasn't the right thing for this country to do. It wasn't passing the polls, Bill, and yet it was the right thing to do.
DAVID GREGORY, HOST: Yeah, but Republicans believe that Obamacare is just horrible. I mean, that's a philosophical thing. They believe that.
KIM STRASSEL, WALL STREET JOURNAL: But most Americans do too.
TAVIS SMILEY: Right, and Republicans believe that Obama is horrible. A lot of this is about one simple thing: Obstruct Obama.
KRISTOL: No it isn't. They voted against it. If Nancy Pelosi or John Kerry were president, Republicans would have voted against Kerrycare or Pelosicare. It's not personal to President Obama.
Indeed.
This liberal media meme that Republicans only oppose this President because they don't like him - or even worse, because he's black - is offensive.
Al Gore, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, or any other Democrat in the White House trying to advance the exact same policies would meet with the very same pushback from the GOP.
Saying anything to the contrary is intellectually dishonest.
