It was the most succinct -- and graphic -- analysis yet offered of the political implications of the Obamacare rollout.
"There's no way Democrats can spin this ----," said comedian Jon Stewart. That it was Mr. Stewart who said this is significant, because he has a big following among healthy young people, who must sign up for Obamacare in the millions to keep what so far has been mostly farce from becoming a fiasco.
And he was spot on. Most of the "mainstream" media have treated Democratic spin as news, and -- if it reflected poorly on the Obama administration -- played down or ignored genuine news.
The media shield has protected the president from failures in foreign policy, in which most Americans have little knowledge and less interest, and has limited blowback from scandals which most Americans don't think concern them.
But no amount of spin can cloak reality for Americans whose health insurance policy has been canceled, or whose premiums have doubled. Those who've spent hours fruitlessly trying to access Obamacare websites find it harder to believe the president is on top of things, his administration competent.
Obamacare screwups are too big, too obvious, too close to home for journalists to ignore. Despite the welcome distraction of the government "shutdown" -- whose mostly imaginary consequences could be blamed on Republicans -- more negative stories have been written and broadcast about the Obama administration in the last three weeks than ever before.
And now, with the "shutdown" over, Obamacare's botched rollout is the No. 1 story.
Most media attention has been directed at the "glitches" which cause Obamacare websites to crash under volumes of traffic many blogs handle with ease. They won't be fixed for months, IT experts say. If the sites aren't up and running by the middle of November, it'll be all but impossible to sign up enough people to keep Obamacare from going into a financial "death spiral." But IT problems are the least of Obamacare's troubles.
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