A "breaking" email I received from USA Today this morning is a definite sign of establishment press scrambling to give deceptive cover to an Obama administration mandate whose unpopularity continues to grow as more people become aware of it. It also shows the lengths to which the press will go to keep the relatively disengaged, which would include those who only primarily informed via email and other brief alerts without digging further, from encountering basic facts.
The email pretends that the president is about to announce a "decision" (as opposed to changing one), and refers to a "rule" without saying where the rule came from, or why:
Points:
- This isn't about "birth control," it's about "contraception" (abstinence has been known to be a pretty effective form of "birth control").
- The "rule" is an ObamaCare-driven regulation which is a by-product of Nancy Pelosi's "we'll have to pass it before you seen what's in it" legislative subterfuge.
- The claim that the rule only applies to "women" is in one important sense not true. The families of employed men who would have contraceptives of their covered spouses covered would be the "beneficiaries" of the "rule," not just "women." And that's before digging into whether any forms of male contraception which may exist or may be developed in the future might be covered.
Shoot, some disengaged readers who only look at the email's subject line headline may think it's tabloid trash about what form of future pregnancy prevention Barack and Michelle have decided to use themselves.
When clicking through to the link in the email at 9:15 a.m., we see that headline isn't about a "decision," it's about a "change":
"Free of charge"? What an interesting phrase, given that going with "no-cost contraceptive coverage" was a more succinct available option. The undercurrent is that Obama is being forced by a bunch of meanie zealots to take away a freebie.
Expect the scrambling to continue as the administration appears to be in backtrack mode. By the time it's all over, it could turn into a "Gosh, he listened. Isn't our Dear Leader wonderful?" exercise.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
