There is an awful lot to blame the news media for. Obama has been treated by them unfairly in many ways, since the primary, especially when they thought Hillary would probably eventually win.
But the weakness of Obama's health care message is not the fault of the news media.
An awful lot of the energy on DailyKos these days is discussion (argument, insult, reasoned back and forth, etc.) about Obama's performance on health care reform.
Some of us - I am one - believe that Obama has been letting us down badly. Others say we are wrong to criticize him. Some say that we critics must be Obama haters. I myself have been called a troll for criticizing him, and so have others.
I am an Obama defender - when he is attacked unfairly. The Fox News and Republican Party attacks are blatant, ugly lies, frequently appealing to underlying racism. My father's parents died in the holocaust, so I never got to know them. It enrages me I can't tell you how much when the right wing uses "Nazi" and "Hitler" in talking about Obama. The smart ones among them know how infuriating it is. It is hilarious to them, the smart ones among them, because they know how it must burn. By extension, they are calling the victims of nazism nazis. The Big Lie strategy is still effective.
But I am an Obama critic in regard to a number of important issues. His position on not prosecuting what are probably provable crimes in the Bush administration with regard to torture amount to a rejection of Nuremburg. This in itself is a horrible disservice to the country. They were just doing their job was exposed as invalid at Nuremburg. By reviving the theory, Obama has set us back decades.
Obama's performance on Defense of Marriage Act and Don't Ask Don't Tell issues has been weak and mixed. His secrecy policy seems to continue that of the Bush/Cheney years.
But the Health Care Reform issues are going to be where he sinks or swims, it seems. And he has seemed intent on betraying his base in a big way, not believing that it will make him sink, because his Prime Directive, it seems, is the very principle that has made the Democratic Party such an ineffective organization for positive change (but very effective as a buffer against reform). The principle is that the Democratic Party is dedicated to serving the same interests that the Republican Party serves, but not so transparently; that people who want a more just society will have to vote for Democrats over Republicans, because no other choice will be tolerated in the two party system; that people who want reform will provide the energy to get Democrats elected, and then after the elections, the officials will give the powers behind the throne most of what they want, with a few populist adornments.
People do not think that Obama wants to get rid of the public option because of deceptive reporting by Fox or Politico or the Washington Post. The corporate media do indeed report very badly, and do scoundrelly dishonest things, and are corrupted by corporate interests. The major corporations, media and other sectors, work together, and perceive their interests as harmonious, it seems to me.
But Obama is the President. Some say that the stories claiming that the Public Option is dead are not credible because the sources are not identified, or because it was not the President himself speaking, just someone who works for him -- Axelrod, Sibelius, whoever. We should wait and see what he says himself.
In my opinion, that does not make sense. Now, if it were Joe Biden, maybe, because sometimes it seems that he just talks off the top of his head. But if he, or anyone else, said something that the President didn't like, it would be the President's responsibility to make them correct it immediately, in strong terms. And the President would speak in strong terms himself.
Instead, he is muffling his message, and it can't be by accident. We all know that he can make himself very clear when he wants to. We are up against a vast army of interests that call any effort to reduce the legally structured theft from the many by the few "socialism," and that is supposed to be a bad thing. I think the most reasonable take on this is that Social Security and Medicare are socialist measures, and they are very popular. Like every other economy in the world, ours is mixed, and the idea of pure capitalism is an ideal that has never existed, cannot exist, and is a terrible idea anyway.
If Obama wants to bring about real reform, change we can believe in, he will have to fight. There is a conflict of interests here, and the other side has the upper hand; but the people have the power, potentially, if united in understanding and purpose. The corporate media are always going to do their thing. Their reporters and editors are culled, not for the most talented at informing the public, but for those best able and most willing to serve their owners' interests. Obama would have to unite people, educate people.
Yes, he will soon be giving a speech to Congress, and it will be seen by many many people. But what has he done so far? And importantly, what has he failed to do?
He gave away the single payer - Medicare for All - approach, which is what we really need - from the very beginning. Not in negotiation, just a gift to the insurance companies. In return, he said he would get us the Public Option.
He made a deal with big Pharma, to get their support (or apparent support) for reform, by agreeing to protect their interests. He did this secretly, and denied he had done it, until it was definitively proven.
He failed to run a campaign to expose the horrors of our current state of affairs. (My wife could have testified. She almost died in a car accident a couple of years ago; she was helicoptered to the trauma unit; she could not move or talk more than a few words; and Kaiser Permanente tried to deny all claims because she had not produced her insurance card before treatment. They make you work for everything you get.) He could have built up, over weeks, a burning desire among the people for change, with an understanding of the nature of change needed, and why. But this would have set the rightwing against him, so he didn't do it. He thought everybody was so in love with him that nobody would notice that he was preferring corporate interests over the public interest. Guess what, many of us noticed. In fact, it surprises me how many have noticed.
And instead of defusing the rightwing, it has encouraged them. He has been like a postman with a special fear of dogs. The dogs can smell the fear.
His first big speech on the issue as president was disturbing in that it was not forceful or specific. Now it appears that he was hiding to try to defer the liberal criticism until it was too late.
His big talk in Colorado was sounding pretty good until he got to the Public Option - the compromise in place of the truly needed Medicare for All - which he called a "sliver" of the plan.
In the context of all this, the failings of the corporate media are irrelevant. Obama has created a context in which stories claiming that sources - identified or not - are saying Obama has abandoned the Public Option are reinforcement of what we see unrolling opening before our eyes: Obama is protecting the interests of the insurance companies from us.
At this point, it will take a lot more than one speech to undo the damage by action and inaction. The problem is, at this point I find it hard to believe that Obama WANTS to undo the damage.
As Rachel Maddow would say, talk me down. Believe me, I will be grateful if you do - providing that Obama comes through ultimately.
But if what seems the plain truth to me is actually real, I think we'd be better off if we all realized it.