The national organization called Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) keeps giving right-wing commentators fits.

The latest example occurred last week when Forbes.com headlined a story "Obama's Doctor Knocks ObamaCare," which was quickly picked up the Drudge Report and, in turn, many conservative bloggers, to show that not even the president's own doctor supports his "socialized" health care plans.

Popular right-wing blogger Mark Hemingway on National Review Online posted three paragraphs from the Forbes report and, according to FAIR, followed with a triumphant, one word "Ouch."

But, FAIR noted, it might have helped if Hemingway and the others had actually read the Forbes report.

For Dr. David Scheiner of Chicago wasn't criticizing Obama's plans for being socialistic, but was criticizing them for not going far enough.

The Forbes story reported that when Scheiner was asked what Obama should be focused on, the doctor replied that a good health reform would be "Medicare for all," a single-payer system where the government would cover everyone and pay for it by cutting out waste in the system.

"A neurosurgeon gets paid $20,000 for cutting into the neck of my patient. Have him get paid $1 million a year instead of $2 and $3 million. He won't starve," Obama's doctor said.

When this was pointed out to Hemingway, he posted an update.

"I didn't intend to present this as one-sided. I quickly cut and pasted the first three grafs. Suffice to say, you should keep in mind the Hyde Park doc is criticizing ObamaCare from the left. Either way, that people close to the president feel free to express these kinds of opinions doesn't seem to bode well for health care reform politically," he wrote.

Strange, as FAIR noted: "Beyond Hemingway's odd suggestion that it's a bad thing for a president to know people who openly disagree with him, it seems somewhat unlikely that he, as an NRO blogger, would have approvingly quoted a single-payer advocate's criticism of the president -- that is, if he knew the critic was a single-payer supporter."

Dave Zweifel is editor emeritus of The Capital Times.

Dave Zweifel - 7/06/2009 5:24 am

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