Though polls show his popularity in slight decline, Obama did nothing at the news conference -- other than preempt or delay some prime-time shows -- that would seem potentially harmful to his image. About the most justifiable criticism that could likely be made: "Barack Obama still seems too good to be true."
The headline was "Obama Goes Off-Topic, Clearly." That referred to Obama’s last answer saying the cops in Cambridge, Massachusetts acted "stupidly" in dealing with the screaming and yelling Harvard historian Henry Louis Gates. Shales thought it might require a little damage control, but he found it "refreshingly blunt."
Oddly enough, for a TV critic who thinks Obama is still "too good to be true," Shales seemed to jab at journalists for being too well-behaved: "As usual, Obama turned in an admirably effective performance at the news conference, even if it did seem a little too tidy -- and even rehearsed -- for nearly all the reporters to fall in line and stick with the matter at hand rather than pursue their own little butterflies as in many administrations past."
It’s absolutely true that reporters didn’t have to fall in line with the administration’s stated purpose for the press conference. (Shales could have added the distinct possibility that the "butterflies" who ask off-topic questions might get scratched off the list of questioners for the next big press event.)
On the whole, Shales claimed that "clarity reigned" with Obama’s health-care talk, and the headline inside the paper was "Obama's on the Straight Talk Express."
That’s hardly what many viewers thought. TV reporters like ABC’s Jake Tapper asked tough questions that Obama answered far too cutely:
TAPPER: You said earlier that you wanted to tell the American people what's in it for them, how will their family benefit from health care reform. But experts say that in addition to the benefits that you're pushing there is going to have to be some sacrifice in order for there to be true cost-cutting measures, such as Americans giving up tests, referrals, choice, end-of-life care. When you describe health care reform you don't -- understandably you don't talk about the sacrifices that Americans might have to make. Do you think -- do you accept the premise that other than some tax increases on the wealthiest Americans, the American people are going to have to give anything up in order for this to happen?
OBAMA: They're going to have to give up paying for things that don't make them healthier. And I -- speaking as an American, I think that's the kind of change you want.
Look, if right now hospitals and doctors aren't coordinating enough to have you just take one test when you come in because of an illness, but instead have you take one test; then you go to another specialist, you take a second test; then you go to another special, you take a third test -- and nobody's bothering to send the first test that you took -- same test -- to the next doctors, you're wasting money.
Can you listen to this odd example and say "clarity reigned"? Does Obama really think someone goes to three specialists to take the same exact test, whether it’s a blood test or a mammogram or a prostate exam? How dumb does he think patients are in our health system? How dumb does he think insurers are to pay for three strikes at the same test? Listen to him lecture Tapper and the country:
Now, I want to change that. Every American should want to change that. Why would we want to pay for things that don't work, that aren't making us healthier? And here's what I'm confident about: If doctors and patients have the best information about what works and what doesn't, then they're going to want to pay for what works. If there's a blue pill and a red pill and the blue pill is half the price of the red pill and works just as well, why not pay half price for the thing that's going to make you well?
But the system right now doesn't incentivize that. Those are the changes that are going to be needed -- that we're going to need to make inside the system. It will require I think patients to -- as well as doctors, as well as hospitals -- to be more discriminating consumers.
The only thing that’s clear in this oration is that Obama thinks the government needs to get involved because the American people are not very smart, "discriminating consumers."
