Leftist Media Mounts Coordinated Attack on Obama's Claim to 'Greater, More Competent Government'

Look, criticism of the administration's disastrous rollout of the ObamaCare monstrosity has been amazingly bipartisan. We've seen leftist media coverage piling on this clusterf-k, and Senate Democrats up for reelection next year are begging the White House for a delay of the law's implementation.

You do have diehard progressives, however, like Martin Longman at the idiot Boom Tribune, who remain deep in denial on the failure of this legislation, convinced that it's just a matter of time before the website's up and running and consumers start saving money with government-run insurance. Right. That's at the same time Californians are giving that Obamanation the big FU. Hey, must be fun in La La Land.

Meanwhile, the big-guns of the Obama-media are highlighting how the failed website launch is highlighting Obama's longstanding and outrageously bogus claims that progressivism would bring about better, more competent government.

From Dan Balz, for example, at the Washington Post, "HealthCare.gov doesn’t help Obama’s argument for greater government":

LOL! Martin Longman (@BooMan23) loves him some #ObamaCare #Fail! Yeah, dude, it's gonna "lower premiums." Bwahaha!!

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) October 27, 2013

Hey tweeps, Martin Longman, a.k.a. @BooMan23, is an #ObamaCare troofer, lol! "It's a temporary glitch, man." Bwahaha! http://t.co/Enw1ieBJKy

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) October 27, 2013

President Obama has faced a persistent challenge in office. The advocate of big, bold actions to address large and seemingly intractable problems, he has struggled to convince the public that government is equipped to carry out such transformational changes.

The rollout of the Affordable Care Act has highlighted that challenge, and the administration’s response has no doubt set the president back. He and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius were slow to acknowledge the scope of the problems with HealthCare.gov, and overall the administration has hardly lived up to its pledge to be the most transparent in history.

Administration officials insist that the health-care law is sound, even if the Web site has proved a nightmare to navigate. But the questions raised by the botched rollout go beyond whether the Web site Obama touted so positively is merely plagued with technological glitches or is flawed in more fundamental ways. The whole episode points to the broader debate that the president has yet to win about the role of government.

When he was reelected last November, Obama and his advisers took the results as a mandate to continue or even accelerate the kinds of changes he had started during his first term. Democrats looked at the coalition that gave Obama a second term and saw the makings of a new progressive era after decades of conservative ascendancy.

But exit polls underscored the degree to which he had lost ground on the core debate about the government’s role. After four years of Obama as president, voters showed a smaller appetite for government to do things than they had when he was first elected.

On Election Day 2012, just 43 percent of those who voted said they wanted government to do more to solve problems, while 51 percent said government was doing too many things that were better left to the private sector or individuals. Four years earlier, in November 2008, the exit polls showed just the opposite: 51 percent said they wanted government to do more, while 43 percent said it should do less.

More at the link.

And here comes the New York Times, "Health Site Woes Undermine Obama’s Vow on Government":

WASHINGTON — The implicit promise of Barack Obama’s presidency, delivered during the 2008 campaign and again repeatedly since then, was that government would not face a debacle like the recent malfunction of the technology behind the president’s new health care marketplaces.

In his biggest and most important speeches, the president often talks with passion about a “smarter, more effective government.” He has called on Congress to embrace and pay for a “21st century government that’s open and competent.” And he has vowed to work to “rebuild people’s faith in the institution of government.”

But in the pursuit of that lofty goal, Mr. Obama faces determined opposition from conservatives who view government as the problem, not the solution. And to succeed, he must win over an increasingly skeptical public whose trust in government has eroded over decades. A survey last week by the Pew Research Center found that just 19 percent of Americans trust government to do what is right just about always or most of the time.

The breakdown of the federal HealthCare.gov Web site could emerge as a test of Mr. Obama’s philosophy, with potentially serious implications for an agenda that relies heavily on the belief in a can-do bureaucracy. Michael Dimock, the Pew center’s director, said that the longer the problems persist, the more they could bolster what he called the “almost American value that government is inefficient.”

“There is a lingering kind of effect,” he said. “It matters not only because the public may have an inherent skepticism. It puts the ball on the tee for your critics and the late-night comics.”

Continue reading.

It's going to be a long, hard year for Democrats. Talk won't be about big new government initiatives, despite attempts by the White House to turn the page to immigration reform and who knows what else? Congressional Democrats are going to be playing the CYA reelection games, dodging ObamaCare right up to November 2014. And it's going to be an ugly bloodbath for the law's supporters.

Make the f-kers eat it.

Martin Longman too.