Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting posts a mini-critique of a few items the media have covered during the week. Here is the latest edition:
Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2009—Hannity outdumbs himself:
Sean Hannity, enabled by the one and only Dick Morris, manages to outdumb even himself, claiming that the public option (which is, at its core, just an optional) doesn't have an individual opt-out. [...]
HANNITY: Harry Reid comes out today, says government option with the states’ ability to opt-out and it will include a co-op.
MORRIS: Opt-out if the Feds feel that they have successfully offered an alternative. The feds can say, no Alabama you’re not doing enough...
HANNITY: So it’s not really an opt-out anyway?
MORRIS: It’s not really an opt-out.
HANNITY: And it’s not an individual — an individual can’t opt out.
MORRIS: Exactly.
HANNITY: It’s the state that has to opt-out.
At least the garbage Morris spewed about Alabama resulted in a somewhat coherent claim—that states wouldn't be allowed to opt-out. It's not true, but at least it makes sense in some sort of twisted teabagger version of reality.
But Hannity's claim—that the public option doesn't have an individual opt-out—is beyond stupid. The whole idea of the public option is that there's nothing to opt out of! It is by its very nature something that individuals will only participate in if they so choose. If you don't want the public option, then don't sign up for it. Nobody will be enrolled in it who doesn't ask to be enrolled.
Tweet of the Day
On
today's Kagro in the Morning show: Another show held together with duct tape and chicken wire! Follow-up on EFF's claims that "sneak & peek" warrants were being abused. Further consideration of the privatized surveillance dodge. Today in "What Could Go Wrong?": The CIA hires Amazon to handle its cloud computing; Personhood amendments on the ballot in North Dakota and Colorado; FBI creates a fake
Seattle Times page with a fake AP story on it to nab a suspect.
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