President Barack Obama is on the warpath over myths and distortions about health care reform, but he’s spreading one of his own: that there’s any chance of genuinely bipartisan health care legislation reaching his desk this fall.
In truth, Democratic offers to reach across the aisle — and Republican demands that they do so — are largely a charade, performed for the benefit of a huge bloc of practical-minded voters who hunger for the two parties to work together and are mystified that it never seems to happen…
With no clear national leader in elected office, talk radio hosts such as Rush Limbaugh, TV personalities such as Glenn Beck and websites such as the Drudge Report are dominating the GOP. They have much more power than John Boehner or Mitch McConnell to drive a story narrative — or get conservative activists worked up.
A similar dynamic is playing out on the left, too. The Huffington Post, the fast-growing and highly influential site for liberals, and the most popular figures on MSNBC in prime time such as Keith Olbermann are often popularly caricatured as being in the tank for Obama. That is often true.
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