I become more convinced daily that health care reform is about reforming health care to generate even higher profits for insurance companies.

Making sure people receive good medical care seems to be very far down the list.

Is there nothing to be done about Sen. “I received almost $3 million from the insurance lobbies, so I killed the public option” Baucus?

It’s infotainment, and it’s killing us.  People prefer to have a Codpiece in a flight suit “fightin’ terra” to actually researching facts and making hard decisions.

Just which “box” is this asshat thinking “outside” of?  He really is just plain stupid, isn’t he?

Memo to Richard Cohen: if you can’t make a story you’re covering interesting or at least understandable, don’t cover it. You’re not the only journalist in the newsroom, and I assure you that the assignment editor (who thinks there’s good reason to cover the story) will find a better and more knowledgeable writer to take the job.

I got my first major bylines years ago by grabbing away stories like this from time-serving deadwood like Cohen. Young journalists should identify these newsroom types, and be ready to pounce when they start whingeing.

Shorter Villagers, Blue Dogs, Republicans, Big Insurance:

Healthcare in America would be really great if we could just figure out a way to get rid of all those sick people…

Young journalists should identify these newsroom types, and be ready to pounce when they start whingeing.

Except young journalists aren’t rewarded for good journalism.  They’re rewarded for cronyism and back scratching and getting invited to the right cocktail parties hosted by the right lobbyists and their pet Congresscritters.

So even if a smart and savvy young gun does pounce on this story, he’ll get his column shuffled back to page A96 while another dozen Michael Jackson Is Dead! stories litter the front page.  I mean, Cohen knows where his bread is buttered.  Health care is so unimportant that he doesn’t even have to pretend to care.

Except young journalists aren’t rewarded for good journalism.

At newsrooms like the WaPo, that’s true. In other newsrooms, not so much. The problem is that there are a lot fewer of the latter with every passing month, and fewer paying jobs for young journalists.

Health care is so unimportant that he doesn’t even have to pretend to care.

He cares enough to write a column about how little he cares.

Has anyone ever seen Richard Cohen and Jonah Goldberg in the same room at the same time?...

Gracchus, I wonder if now is the time for some reporters—REAL reporters—to try out an independent news providing company on the web. People are getting dissatisfied with corporate media, and there could be a symbiotic relationship between the new news service and bloggers, to help get them the audience they need.

and at the end of the day—mind-numbingly boring

Jeez, Cohen, if it’s too boring and complicated, let someone else have the wheel.

You are in dire need of a good case of Sicko, or at least Nickeled and Dimed.

“You are in dire need of a good case of Sicko, or at least Nickeled and Dimed.”

Cohen knows the only people who count live in NYC and DC, and none of the important people are affected by the proles’ petty concerns over healthcare.

“Your Majesty!  The People have no healthcare!”

“Let them go to the Emergency Room…!”

I think that’s one of the main reasons why they would prefer that noone read any bills for themselves - then they can just make up shit wholecloth (“They’re going to KILL GRANDMA!!111!!”) and the lazy asshats that are the majority of the conservapunditocracy can just carry those talking points.
Plus it’s SO HARD to read up on the facts… whine whine…
Buncha douches.

Cohen’s one attempt to be serious about health care:

I cannot for the life of me figure out why Obama did not simply expand Medicare, lowering the eligible age until everyone was covered.

Um, perhaps because the questions of who would pay for what, and which reforms to health care are worth pursuing, would still have to be answered?

Remind me again how this fuzzy-headed yutz keeps his job.

Gracchus, I wonder if now is the time for some reporters—REAL reporters—to try out an independent news providing company on the web.

They’re out there. Try http://therealnews.com—Real reporters, real editors, professional production, non-profit. http://current.com is also trying (sadly, their reporters are still stuck in N Korea, but at least current covers the region properly instead of from an office in Singapore or Sydney or London).

Damn it, I *agree* that Obama should just have asked for a gradual extension of Medicare, or any of several other federal health coverage plans.  Then everyone could be arguing about who would pay for what, which is a serious but essentially tractable problem, instead of debating which of a dozen inadequate and badly designed plans to support (and incidentally, who will pay for what).  The way it’s going, we will be stuck with something that is clunky, not adequate to the task, and almost impossible to actually extend to *everyone* without years more of this same embarrassing “debate”.  All the real countries are looking at us now and rolling their eyes.

One of the Seattle papers went on-line only.
Sadly they still take AP as gospel and refuse to allow commentary on the AP wire stories so AP can continue their crusade against Obama, Healthcare and just about everything else progressive.

A long time ago in a city not to far away, I saw a newsworthy event in person, then read about an entirely different event—at the same location and time—in the paper the next day.

Then, I read an article about a topic I knew well, and realized that the article was written by someone who hadn’t a clue about the topic, who could only ask surface-level questions, where the best result one could hope for was that they’d quote accurately and not leave the most important points out.

A while later, I went to a meeting where a speaker coached some activists on how to deal with journalists, how to give them the information they need, how to make their job easy by feeding them their lines, etc.  The strategy was simple:  The journalists didn’t know the topic and had no time to research it, so if you give them a plausible story and make it easier to tell than activists on the other side, the story will reflect your views.

While all this was happening, I was gaining a deep appreciation for careerism, the tendency we all have to conform to the ways and goals of an organization, and in particular, the ways and goals of those who can help us achieve our personal goals, and I realized that editors and publishers never have to censor anyone, they just have to promote those who conform.

Given all that, the surprising things are that journalism is as good as it is and that anyone pays attention to what journalists write.