CNN Host Asks If Initial Outrage Over Contraception Mandate was 'Manufactured' to Hurt Obama

February 10th, 2012 4:45 PM

Serving up some pro-Obama spin, CNN's Don Lemon asked Obama's HHS Secretary on Friday if the outrage over the administration's contraception mandate was not genuine, but rather ginned up by conservatives to hurt the President in an election year.

Lemon cited Obama as he noted that many Catholics use contraception, and then he asked HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius if she thought the widespread outrage over the mandate was "manufactured." Ironically, Sebelius disagreed with that assessment. [Video below the break.]

"Do you get the sense that the outrage over the original plan was manufactured to hurt the President politically with Catholic voters?" Lemon asked the secretary. She answered that "I think a lot of the public outcry was urging us to find an appropriate balance."

Lemon asked the question again in his next interview with the general counsel of the Becket Fund, who is representing religious organizations in their lawsuits against the mandate. "Many have said that this is a manufactured controversy in an election year to make the President look bad. How do you respond to that?" he pressed his conservative guest.