{"id":12024,"date":"2014-04-03T13:29:52","date_gmt":"2014-04-03T20:29:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=12024"},"modified":"2014-04-03T13:29:52","modified_gmt":"2014-04-03T20:29:52","slug":"did-gopfox-news-plan-fort-hood-shooting-to-distract-from-obamacare-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=12024","title":{"rendered":"Did GOP\/Fox News Plan Fort Hood Shooting To Distract From ObamaCare Success?"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the March deadline for enrollment in the Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare) arrived, the White House proudly revealed that it had surpassed the goal of seven million enrollments set by the Congressional Budget Office. It was a target that many thought to be out of reach following the technical glitches that plagued the program’s Internet rollout. Under ordinary circumstances, such an achievement would have dominated the news for several days. The positive glow from having succeeded when most predicted failure could have permanently altered the public perception of ObamaCare which was already trending more positively in recent polls.<\/p>\n

The very next day there was a horrific reprise of a deadly shooting at the Fort Hood army base in Texas that has sucked up every ounce of airtime across the television dial. Coincidence?<\/p>\n

Of course it is. To be clear, there is absolutely no chance that either the Republican Party or Fox News had any part in orchestrating the Fort Hood shooting, despite the admittedly sensational headline of this article. This has been a demonstration of how Fox News would have responded if the news about ObamaCare was negative and some other news event pushed the bad news out of the spotlight. Fox would have objected strenuously to the media giving the President a pass rather than drooling over a potential White House flop.<\/p>\n

This is not conjecture. It is precisely how Fox News has behaved<\/a> in the past when they alleged that everything from the minimum wage to Syria to immigration reform were deliberate efforts to distract the public from the health care law when it appeared to be in trouble. It seemed like it would just be a matter of time before some rightist conspiracy nut (probably Glenn Beck) would come up with an alien baby for Sarah Palin as an excuse to avoid discussing ObamaCare.<\/p>\n

\"Sarah<\/p>\n

You think this is bad? There’s more where that came from!
\nGet Fox Nation vs. Reality. Available now at Amazon.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Fort Hood shooting is a tragedy that deserves the attention of the media. However, it is usually the case that the press will fetishize a story to boost ratings, rather than to objectively inform their audience. Consequently, the uplifting success of ObamaCare will get short shrift following the Fort Hood homicides. Also bumped from the news cycle is the previous press fixation on Malaysia’s flight MH370.<\/p>\n

One of the more interesting tangents dangling from the ObamaCare story that is now likely to be ignored, is the utter failure of right-wing critics of the law to predict the eventual outcome. Notable among them is former Bush crony and current GOP Super-PACman, Karl Rove who, when asked about the seven million sign up figure, said with complete and delusional confidence that “There is no way they\u2019re gonna get anywhere close. It just ain\u2019t gonna happen.”<\/em> And he was not alone in mistakenly predicting failure for ObamaCare long before the numbers were in:<\/p>\n