Fox News - the most trusted name in truthiness

Most Americans -- 61% -- do not believe in Darwin's theory of evolution [1]. In July 2009, an astonishing 58% of Republicans were not sure/doubted Obama was born in the United States [2].  In February 2002, a full 57% of Americans believed Iraq was directly involved in the Sept. 11 attacks or gave "substantial support" to al-Qaeda, 22% believed WMD had been found in Iraq, and 56% believed world opinion favored the Iraq war or was divided evenly -- all of which was demonstrably false at the time [3].

So perhaps it should not be too surprising that Glenn Beck is America's second most beloved TV personality (next to Oprah Winfrey) and that 49% of Americans say they trust Fox News -- a better score than any other TV news channel.  Politico reports:

“A generation ago you would have expected Americans to place their trust in the most neutral and unbiased conveyors of news,” said PPP President Dean Debnam in his analysis of the poll. “But the media landscape has really changed, and now they’re turning more toward the outlets that tell them what they want to hear.” 

This conclusion is backed up by a breakdown of the poll:  74% of Republicans said they trust Fox News, while only 30% of Democrats said they did. 

The thing about Fox News is that it has a severe case of all the usual TV news biases, plus a very strong ideological bias.  In recent years, MSNBC has tried to mimic the success of FN by becoming its leftist alter-ego.  But Fox News still stands out by the way its coverage distorts the facts and misinforms its viewers, in the service of its conservative ideology.  It even misinforms its viewers of the fact that it has an ideological bent.

An NBC poll found that whereas half the general public was misinformed, the overwhelming majority of Fox News viewers were misinformed about the proposed health insurance legislation:

In our poll, 72% of self-identified FOX News viewers believe the health-care plan will give coverage to illegal immigrants, 79% of them say it will lead to a government takeover, 69% think that it will use taxpayer dollars to pay for abortions, and 75% believe that it will allow the government to make decisions about when to stop providing care for the elderly.

All of these perceptions are demonstrably false, as shown by nonpartisan fact-checking groups.  (The proposed health insurance legislation would not cover illegal immigrants, it would not lead to "a government takeover of health care" or taxpayer subsidies for abortion, and Sarah Palin's fantasy about death panels was Politifact.com's "lie of the year".  Congratulations on your award, Sarah.  No wonder Fox News hired you.)

You might think the NBC poll is untrustworthy.  Fair enough.  Let's go back to the original poll which found Fox News to be the most trusted network.  Here's what that polling organization had to say:

Denham said he had first-hand experience of Fox News's value judgments.

His firm had conducted a poll that produced some strikingly poor results for the Democrats in terms of their popularity ratings. At exactly the same time Fox News commissioned its own internal poll, which came up with more favourable results for the Democrats, yet the network decided to go with PPP's results rather than its own.

"That showed me that when they have the opportunity to go with something more negative about the Democrats, they will."

A 2003 study from the U. of Maryland found that Fox News viewers were most likely to have factually untrue beliefs which were crucial to their support of the Iraq war.  Here is just one example from the study [3]:

The extent of Americans’ misperceptions vary significantly depending on their source of news. Those who receive most of their news from Fox News are more likely than average to have misperceptions....—and were more than twice as likely than the next nearest network to hold all three misperceptions.

...

When asked whether the US has found “clear evidence in Iraq that Saddam Hussein was working closely with the al-Qaeda terrorist organization,” among the combined sample for the three-month period 49% said that such evidence had been found. This misperception was substantially higher among those who get their news primarily from Fox—67%. Once again the NPR-PBS audience was the lowest at 16%.

The Columbia Journalism Review (which has been critical of liberal bias in the mainstream media), reports:

The [leaked, internal] memo informed Fox news employees to “be on the lookout for any statements from the Iraqi insurgents, who must be thrilled at the prospect of a Dem controlled Congress,” and “just because Dems won, the war on terror isn’t over.”

The CJR also reported the "fourth-grade-style doctoring of pictures" of NYT employees to make them look ugly, and misleading coverage designed to implicate al-Qaeda or illegal immigrants in the California wildfires on "Fox and Friends".

The fact that Fox News has a pro-Republican ideology and misleads its viewers should not be surprising.  After all, Rupert Murdoch has said openly that he used his media empire to try to influence public opinion in favor of the Iraq war.  That doesn't sound like "We report, you decide" to me.  And keep in mind, this is a guy who made his fortune peddling vulgar tabloids. 

Roger Ailes, founder and president of Fox News, worked for decades as media consultant for Republican campaigns, including the Nixon, Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Guliani campaigns.  He also produced Rush Limbaugh's short-lived TV show.  Progressive media watchdog FAIR reports [4]: 

Described by fellow Bush aide Lee Atwater as having "two speeds--attack and destroy," Ailes once jocularly told a Time reporter (8/22/88): "The only question is whether we depict Willie Horton with a knife in his hand or without it." Later, ... he was fond of calling Bill Clinton the "hippie president" and lashing out at "liberal bigots" (Washington Times, 5/11/93).

Here is what one Murdoch family member said recently about Fox News president Roger Ailes [5]:

Earlier this month the PR executive Matthew Freud, who is married to Rupert Murdoch's daughter Elisabeth, told the New York Times he was "ashamed and sickened by Roger Ailes's horrendous and sustained disregard of journalistic standards".

Tony Snow, Neil Cavuto, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Brit Hume, Mort Kondrake, Fred Barnes, John Gibson, Laura Ingram -- almost all the Fox News mainstays have worked for the Republican party or were contributors to conservative publications.  The "liberal" commentators on FN are often, in fact, quite conservative or moderate.  FAIR goes into great detail on this and I challenge anyone to dispute its facts [4].  FAIR has done quantitative studies of Fox News' ideological bias, and here is just a taste [6]:

Of the 56 partisan guests on Special Report between January and May, 50 were Republicans and six were Democrats -- a greater than 8 to 1 imbalance. In other words, 89 percent of guests with a party affiliation were Republicans.

Call FAIR untrustworthy if you like, but you'll have a harder time dismissing The Pew Research Center.  Pew's Project for Excellence in Journalism concluded in their annual 2005 report :

Fox was measurably more one-sided than the other networks, and Fox journalists were more opinionated on the air. ... In the degree to which journalists are allowed to offer their own opinions, Fox stands out. Across the programs studied, nearly seven out of ten stories (68%) included personal opinions from Fox's reporters -- the highest of any outlet studied by far.... Those findings seem to challenge Fox's promotional marketing, particularly its slogan, "We Report. You Decide."

The report added:

Some observers might argue that opinions clearly offered as such are more honest than a slant subtly embedded in the sound bites selected or questions asked. But that was not the case here. Given the live formats on cable, the opinions of reporters and anchors are often embedded in questions or thrown in as asides. Only occasionally were they labeled as commentary.

In the UK, this is actually illegal.  You can't claim "We report, you decide" and then have your reporters constantly injecting personal opinions and half-truths into their reports.  That is why Fox News was investigated in the UK for violating its TV news misinformation laws.  And that is why Fox News is now banned there.  CNN, the BBC, and Al-Jazeera English are not (watch it before judging it).

As if this wasn't enough proof that Fox News misinforms its viewers, here are just a few specific examples:

• Watch a montage of the blatant FN promotion of the Tea Party protests.  This is from media watchdog Media Matters for America, an admitted progressive outfit.  Fox News tried to exaggerate the number of protesters and even spliced footage from a different event to make it look bigger.  Oops.

• Well-known liar Jerome Corsi was invited on Hannity & Colmes on multiple occasions ahead of the release of his book The Obama Nation.  The book is full of demonstrable lies.  One might expect a hard-hitting objective news channel to alert its viewers.  Instead, I watched Sean Hannity say proudly "We launched it right here on this program" (referring to Corsi's book).  Would a neutral and trustworthy news channel "launch" a dishonest smear book against one candidate during the heat of a political campaign?

• Fox News "broke" the false story that Obama was educated at an Islamic madrassah in Indonesia.  It was based on a conservative blog.  Oops.

• While visiting my parents, I once saw FN play -- for the second time -- a full six-and-a-half minute segment satirizing Obama as "the blessed child".  That's not news, that's propaganda, and two 6.5 minute segments is an enormous block of time.  This was all in July, right in the heat of the presidential race. 

• A self-confessed "Liberal Viewer" demonstrates pretty convincingly that Fox News basically trashed Kurt Vonnegut right after his death .  He also shows how FN edited out a follow-up question in order to make it look like Obama was contradicting himself during the 2009 Democratic primaries.  Liberal Viewer makes the same point I'm making:  Fox News has all the biases and flaws of all major media, plus an ideological bias and a consistent tendency to distort the facts in order to serve this ideology.  (Check out LiberalViewer's over 100 examples of Fox News bias and judge for yourself.)

• Look at this "interview" with a representative from Greenpeace.  How can anyone watch this juvenile attack piece and call it serious journalism?  To his credit, the Greenpeace rep. did a great job sticking to calm logic and reason.  Meanwhile, the Fox news-actress and her obnoxious male side-kick were acting buffoonishly, desperately attempting to frame environmentalists as silly loons, who barge in on us in the bathroom.  Their goal is to give viewers a misperception of the issue.

[1] Gallup poll, Feb 2009
[2] Politico.com 

[3] University of Maryland, "Misperceptions, the Media, and the Iraq War" 2003

[4] Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting

[5] The Guardian, Jan 2010

[6] FAIR

Obama: The First Year

Obama: The First Year

Why don't we rate the President based on what he said he would do, and what he said got him elected.

1) I'll end the war in Iraq in 16 months and bring the troops home.

Peak troop strength in Iraq and Afghanistan:
Iraq Afghanistan total time period
Bush: 160,000 26,000 186,000 2007 to early 2008
Obama: 124,000 65,000 189,000 October 2009

U.S deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan:
2008 (Last year of Bush): 466
2009 (first year of Obama): 450 (plus 30 in January 2010)
Source : DoD
…doesn't look like much of an antiwar president, does he?

2) I'll reach across the aisle and put an end to partisan politics…and usher in the post partisan era.

Partisanship is the worst it has ever been, and the whine that "they wouldn't let me be non partisan" only evokes the question "who is the leader who said he could get both parties to work together?". It should be embarrassing that the President, with a super majority, couldn't get one major piece of legislation enacted. He didn't need any Republican votes…so how can the Republicans be what stopped him…and why couldn't his great non partisan approach get at least a few Republican votes? No major legislation has been passed without some votes from the other party, yet Obama is the only president unable to influence even one vote. Some "post partisan" era.

3) I'll close Gitmo within the first year of my presidency.

Don't look now, but we're entering month thirteen, and the president hasn't released any more prisoners than President Bush did (and it's still open).

4) Transparency…no more back room meetings….the American people deserve to know what deals are being cut, and who's cutting them. I'll have CSPAN in meetings/negotiations.

The president didn't allow CSPAN to the myriad deal cutting negotiations with special interest groups, but he did drag the cameras to his meeting with Republicans. Pretty sorry performance here.

5) No more Earmarks

Except for the record number in his first year…pretty funny, if it weren't so serious.

6) No lobbyists will be welcome in my administration.

They may not be welcome, but they're there…17 at last count (with Goldman Sachs well represented as well). And read this…"The White House is encouraging you to participate in these calls and will have a question and answer session at the end of each call. As a reminder, these calls are not intended for press purposes." Fred Baldassano, Obama Treasury Dep't Senior Advisor writing to a list of K Street Lobbyists. Does anybody else smell dead fish?

7)I'll get the deficits under control, and cut them in half by 2012

In one year, our new president has increased the deficit almost as much as all the president before him combined (I know, I know, he inherited a mess and there is nothing he can do about it).

A change president? An anti war president? A post partisan president? As they say, I'm just reporting the facts…you decide. (Sure, there are plenty of excuses to be made for failure, I'm just reporting on performance).

The Old Man
P.S. You won't see this on O'Reilly…it would be too impolite.

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Panic in Washington DC

There is panic in the Congress and the White House today. Polls show that the Senate race in Massachusetts is a toss up, and a Republican could take a seat owned (by divine right) by the Democrats. This would not only be sacrilege, but would take away a filibuster proof Senate majority. This means the Senate might have to discuss and DEBATE the Health Care Manifesto. It would have to be discussed on the Senate floor...where C-SPAN is allowed, and the American people could see it. Why,...why...that might even cause... TRANSPARENCY!
Put the Haitian catastrophe on hold, put the war in Afghanistan on hold, put the economic "crisis" on hold,...our President is headed to Massachusetts to deal with a major crisis, and quell the panic in Washington DC.

The Old Man

Mr. President, was Joe Wilson right?

There is no question that Representative Joe Wilson was rude and out of order when he shouted out "you lie!". But now, Mr. President, you must answer a more important question about his conduct...was he rude and out of order...but right? You are on tape numerous times telling the American people that the conference discussions about the health care legislation should be transparent, "on C-SPAN "...and would be in your administration. You said that the American people had a right to see what deals were being made, and what constituents favored. Yet, up to this moment, you sit silently condoning Ms. Pelosi's derisive dismissal of any such thing.

Were you sincere, Mr. President...were you telling the truth about your commitment to "transparency"? Or was Joe Wilson right?

The Old Man

Obamacare wins!...(never mind that nobody wants it)

Obamacare…The “left” doesn’t want it passed. “The fundamental failing of the newest Senate proposal (on healthcare) is that it requires individuals to purchase health insurance, but does nothing to rein in what insurance companies can charge. There is nothing to stop spiraling health care costs from eating up an ever increasing percentage of our national productivity.” Huffington Post 12/15/09. Wow! That’s the left wing stating that this bill doesn’t help, but hurts the cost issue! The Huffington Post goes on to say “ What the Senate is currently discussing will make health care more expensive for individuals, families and businesses, with no check on the insurance companies…they’re on track to make the problems worse rather than better.” That’s the left wing, Washington insider, Obama supporting Huffington Post.

The “right” doesn’t want it passed. “All Republican Senators now oppose the bill…” WSJ. (So much for the “post partisan era”).

The Independents don’t want the bill passed. Senator Lieberman has been widely quoted as saying that he won’t support the bill with a public option or a Medicare buy down to age 55. (So Majority Leader Reid reportedly took those critical parts of the left agenda out of the bill to win a vote for something). The Independent, Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders said that his vote was “not certain” because the bill needed “a lot of work”. Brattleboro.com.

The past head of the Democratic National Committee (and a doctor) doesn’t want the bill passed. Howard Dean said “This is essentially the collapse of healthcare reform in the Senate and, honestly, the best thing to do right now is to kill the Senate bill.” ABC Morning News 12/15/09.

The American people don’t want the bill passed. The latest (Obama supporting) CNN poll (12/10/09) shows that 61% of Americans oppose the bill. 61%!!
The bill doesn’t meet any of the stated objectives. The latest CBO estimates for the Senate bill say that a family of four with a household income of $54,000/year should expect to pay 17% of their gross income on healthcare…that’s about $9,000/year. Wait a minute…that’s more than the average cost today (about $7,700/year)! So much for the “affordable healthcare for all”, and the portion of the uninsured because they can’t afford healthcare on moderate incomes.

The CMS (Centers for Medicaid & Medicare Services) analysis reported (Dec.14th) that the Senate bill would cause total health expenditures to increase by $234 billion between 2010 and 2019. So much for “bending the cost curve down”.

The CBO estimates that the 15% of the population without health insurance will drop to (at best) 6% if the Senate bill were implemented. So much for “covering all Americans”.

But it will pass and become law for two reasons. The Democrats have a filibuster proof Congress that will pass something, anything, out of loyalty to the party and political payoffs that trump any loyalty to the citizens who voted for them or their own values. Senator Mary Landrieu is an excellent example. She bragged about her payoff, correcting a reporter when he suggested that it was worth $200 million for her to take home to Louisiana, she said “it’s closer to $300 million”. Anyone think she won’t vote “yes” in the final hour, no matter what’s in the bill?

The last few Senators will have their crafted objections overcome in the last hours (we have to have some drama) with broken armed analysts re-assessing the costs more favorably (or just saying it will cost less “cause Obama say so”); or Clintonian parsing of definitions, so that only dollars with even serial numbers can be used to fund abortion. Then there will be tears and a big celebration of the historic moment when the government started to take over another part of our lives.

The Old Man

Obama Tells Old Man not to breathe!

Okay, maybe the title was a little overstated. President Obama didn’t say the official EPA ruling declaring CO2 emissions are bad for the planet meant that I couldn’t breathe…he just said I couldn’t exhale. I guess this is one of the “half truths” he accuses us who have different views of propagating. And clearly, there are options if I cannot, in my selfish, capitalist body, do what’s good for the planet. I am looking into surgical procedures to implant a CO2 converter into my sinus passages, so that after taking in good oxygen, only innocuous, although odious, gases are emitted back into the air. I do, however, worry that this would make me a politician.
I am also waiting to see if this surgery is covered under Obamacare, or covered by a grant from the Cap and Trade bill. I am considering another alternative by exercising my lungs to see if I can build them up so that I can only inhale in the U.S. and exhale when I get to a country that gets paid by the global warming initiative, because it is poor and is exempted from limits on CO2 emissions. They will welcome me, I suppose, because this will increase that country’s CO2 emissions, qualifying them for more funds from the concerned global community. I’ve already heard rumors that some countries are planning special discount travel packages for “exhalers”.
There are other alternatives being proposed by the administration, to be fair, that would allow me to exhale here at home. After all, the president doesn’t really want me to leave, I pay a lot of taxes and he plans for me to pay more. Further, he loses a convenient enemy if I leave. So, the plan would allow me to have a “carbon offset” to compensate for my selfish, greedy pollution by paying China or India to plant a tree to offset their pollution. And I can feel good about that innocent tree having a better chance at survival in China, where there will be some CO2 left that it needs to survive. (China and India have asked, however, that I pay for that tree in something other than U.S. dollars).
So, maybe I overreacted a little. I think I’ll just suck it up and get on board with this great social cause

The Old Man

Shut up and Support the President

Shut up and Support the President!

I as a capitalist, a free enterprise devotee, a fiscal conservative, and a believer in a much smaller, less intrusive federal government whose primary roles are national defense, enforcement of a constructionist view of the Constitution for all of its’ citizens, and allowing free interstate commerce…have deep disagreements in many areas with the Marxist policies and “”one world” views of President Obama.
However, regarding the President’s speech last night on Afghanistan, I have a message for my colleagues who usually disagree with him. This is especially offered to those political leaders and pundits who call themselves conservatives, or view themselves as “loyal opposition”.
This message is (with all due respect): Shut up (the carping) and support the President. Leave the carping to the liberals, that’s what they do. This is War.

You wanted the President to stand up against terrorism, and commit to fight it to make us safer.
He just did.
You wanted the President to say that winning this war was vital to our national security, and that Pakistan and Afghanistan are important to us.
He just did.
You wanted him to “listen to the (military) commanders on the ground”.
He just did.
You wanted him to show courage and stand up to the left wing of his own party.
He just did.
Okay, we’re unhappy about setting a timeline (but with an out to assess conditions on the ground). And you’re not sure how he’ll deliver on his plan. But the President stood up, spoke up, and “manned up” in a difficult situation. We didn’t like it when others criticized the former president during war, showing the world and our enemies a divided country. There are legitimate arguments against being in a war in Afghanistan. There are legitimate arguments about how he will prosecute this war. But the President, for all intents and purposes, made the basic decision you thought he should make, and, so, if we're truly loyal opposition,…this is war…stand together, support the President.
The Old Man

Response to "Obamacare 2"

JRB,

Good to hear from you again, as always!  Don't worry -- I totally forgive you for the incendiary nature of your polemics.  (Okay, so maybe I slide into polemics too, every now and then, haha).  You are right, opinions can change as life unfolds.  (It's never too late, you know!)  I would be quite religious and conservative today if I couldn't change my mind.  Let me know when you start trying to persuade me.

By the way, may I make a suggestion?  Your post title needs a subtitle.  I was thinking along the lines of "Obamacare 2:  Blood Harvest".  Or maybe "Obamacare 2:  Rise of the Machines".

Okay ... seriously now, kidding aside ... I do have to ask:  are the irrelevant insults about the sexual orientation and gender of Barney Frank and Nancy Pelosi really necessary?  Why do you keep bringing it up in your first post?  I don't get it.  Anyway, on to the points:

• You are right, the public option is in the House bill and now the Senate bill.  Excuse me a moment . . . . *celebratory dance* . . . . ahem, okay then.

• The argument of Frank and people who want single-payer someday is that people will flock to public insurance because it will be much cheaper, secure, efficient, etc.  If public insurance is better than private insurance, that's competition for you, don't hate the player hate the game.
  

• You say low profit margins derive from competition.  Of course.  But we have Aetna, B.C.B.S., WellPoint, Cigna, WellCare, United, Humana just to name the biggest insurers....they aren't competing with each other?  There's no competition?  The primary competition that is lacking is competition between private and public insurance.  And at some point, isn't too much competition a bad thing when it comes to insurance (i.e. more insurers, and therefore smaller pools of shared risk)?
  

• The Commerce Clause:  but interstate insurance companies like Blue Cross Blue Shield are interstate commerce.  No?
  

• "If you don't like their prohibitions/exclusions, don't engage them ... they'll soon be out of business".  Not sure what that means.  If you have a preexisting condition or if you can't afford to pay, they probably don't want your business anyway.
  

• Amendment IX:  See my response to Fred under the comments to "Obamacare (Guest Post)" Oct. 24, 2009.

• Please be specific on how the bill excludes Congress, unions, etc.  If you're in a union you won't have a public option?

• Death Panels:  For goodness' sake, I was being facetious!  There are no government-run death panels in Britain which would deny needed care to a person with muscular dystrophy, as our privately-owned death panels do.  The quote from Stephen Hawking is an actual quote.

• My health insurance: comes from an employer-sponsored insurance program.

Finally:  my perspective has changed a lot.  I voted for Bush in 2004 and believed America would never torture captured enemy combatants.  Then my youthful idealism confronted reality.  Of COURSE I'm open to changing my mind.  And I'm sure you are as well ... right? : )

Obamacare 2 (Guest Post)

Note:This is a guest post by JRB

To quote the OLD MAN’s Shakepeare (Hamlet, ACT III, Scene II),

“The lady doth protest too much, methinks!”

Responding to your posts, each in turn:

First, if you check the current legislative initiatives, the Government-run public option is back in, just as I predicted.

Second, if you read Congressman Frank’s public blitherings, he clearly states that a public option is the one sure way to achieve a single-payer (i.e., government run) system. Why? Because the mandates within the legislation will force people who change jobs into the public option, as will definitions which exclude private alternatives. These weaseling maneuvers, which Congress hopes the public won’t recognize, resurrect the old Henry Ford dictum. I.e., “you can have any color you want, so long as it’s black.”

Third, “King Herod” (the insurance industry) generally makes about a 2-3% profit margin on its product sales. That’s $20-30mm per billion in sales, or $12-18mm after the government exacts their levy. Large grocery chains make about 1% on sales. The low margins, and ergo prices, derive directly from competition, that horrible, blood-sucking capitalistic invention.

Fourth, you are spot-on w.r.t. the Patriot Act’s constitutional violations. It authorizes, among other things, self-authorized search warrants by the FBI without judicial approval. This is a clear violation of the Constitution (Amendment IV).

http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.billofrights.html#amendmentiv).

I never stated, or implied, that Obama or the DUMBocrats had a monopoly on constitutional misogyny.

Fifth, your interaction with your physician regarding a health issue isn’t an interstate transaction; ergo it’s not covered under the seventeen specifically allowed federal prerogatives. Indeed the Framer’s original intent, within the Commerce Clause, was to ensure that one state did not prohibit another state from offering products & services to the first state’s citizenry.

Sixth, Aetna & CIGNA have no God-given rights (I’m glad you capitalized God; your parents clearly did something right!). If you don’t like their prohibitions/exclusions, don’t engage them. If they’re so dismissive of the public good, and a myriad of people agree with you, they’ll soon be out of business, just another of those awful characteristics of capitalism.

Seventh, Amendment IX, as you correctly quote, says that unenumerated rights “shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” Amen to that! Please focus on the last three words, “by the people.” The people retain such rights, not the government. Nowhere does it state, or imply, that the federal government shall assume the administration of these rights on behalf of the people. If anything, it confers the securing of such rights to the states, but only after sanctioning by the citizenry. Ergo, the “explosion” you reference seems to be a “dud”.

Eighth, note who the current legislation excludes:
• Congress
• Government employees
• Union members
Is there anything in this “fraternity” that inspires consternation? Please tell me why any of these group deserves exemption from the laws they are set to impose on the rest of us.

Ninth, there is a delicious irony in your comment that,

“the government-run Death Panels are slow and inefficient by American standards”

while advocating that we have government run health care. So, you admit that the government has “death panels”, and, by logical extension, your proposition is that it’s better to have a slow and inefficiently run system, which delays poor decisions, rather than have a faster and more efficient system that engenders good decisions. Sounds like a pyrrhic trade off to me.

Tenth, pray tell, do you have health care, and from whence does it derive?

Lastly, please keep the incendiary nature of these polemics in perspective. I have known you since you were born. You are an intelligent, passionate, accomplished and articulate young man. I am as proud of you as are your parents, and as if you were my own progeny. Your views may change as life unfolds. Simply leave yourself open that one’s perspective may be altered as youthful idealism confronts reality.