No healthcare debate for you!

ABC borrows an ‘F’ and a ‘U’ to Republican concerns over their White House-based healthcare-a-thon.

With much media fanfare, on Wednesday night, ABC turns over its programming to the White House to broadcast a healthcare “forum” complete with experts, administration officials, average voters and the President of the United States himself.  What’s missing?  Any alternative viewpoints. 

And to think FDR only got “fireside chats.”

Obviously frustrated at the political and media criticism that his network has received from the arrangement, ABC News President David Westin lashed out at the program’s critics in a letter sent to the Republican congressionally-based “Media Fairness Caucus.”  Westin’s charge?  Only partisans would have any problem with our one-sided, hyperpartisan “debate.”

Sadly, some inside government and within the private sector see every issue as material for a sort of political high theatre, to be used to gain votes or energize political bases or simply to raise funds. I would have thought that a subject as important as the health care received by the American people would rise above this sorry spectacle. Our citizens need and deserve more.  We are proud to be making a serious effort to go beyond mere punditry or stylized, bipolar debate…

Umm, Dave?  In order to have a “debate”, it has to be “bipolar.”  You know, one viewpoint and an opposing viewpoint.  Of course, you’re the news professional.  Your broadcast is only posting record low ratings, so what do the rest of us know, really?

ABC’s presentation may well end up being more balanced than conservative critics fear, but when prominent single-payer advocates will be headlining the event and opponents can’t even advertise their views on the channel, concerns that ABC will be the American equivalent of the BBC aren’t entirely off-base.  But by suggesting that a “bipolar” debate is counterproductive to addressing healthcare reform, ABC is indirectly discrediting all opponents to the administration’s plans, thus ensuring a less educated electorate – precisely the opposite of what ABC claims to be doing with their program.

Perhaps conservatives ought to cheer the nationalization of one of the “big three” basic networks – the next Republican administration can cite precedence when they take over NBC for a day-long ad for their issue du jour.