Star bases anti-Obama, anti-HCR headline on GOP, Tea Party sources

by David Safier

Unbelievable. The Star created a headline by using GOP talking points and a phrase that comes from signs carried at Tea Party rallies.

First, let's look at the headline most papers used for today's AP story:

Seniors fear health care remake will hurt Medicare

Then there are variations that sound like this:

Seniors are anxious about Medicare cuts

Those heads accurately reflect the tone of the article, which says seniors are concerned about health care reform's effects on their coverage. The article concludes, it's a mixed bag, with some reasons for concern, some improvements and lots of uncertainty because the changes won't kick in for awhile. But the article puts Medicare cuts into perspective:

Medicare spending will continue to grow under the law, just not as fast. The reductions are smaller (about 6 percent) than Democratic President Bill Clinton and a Republican Congress came up with in 1997 (12 percent).

Now for the Star headline on the same article:

Why seniors say Obamacare is bad medicine for them

"Obamacare." "Bad medicine." "Seniors say," not "Seniors fear" or "Seniors are anxious." Every word in the Star headline shouts the message that Obama has created a health care reform bill that will hurt seniors.

Want to know where the creative headline writers got the idea of putting the terms "Obamacare" and "bad medicine" together?

You can find the terms together on David Horowitz's blog. They're in an opinion piece by Jason Fodeman, who recently wrote the anti-Clinton book,"How to Destroy a Village: What the Clintons Taught a Seventeen Year Old." They're in an piece on the Texas GOP Vote website, Will the Democrats "SLAUGHTER" the Constitution? They're in a message from Haley Barbour on Andrew Breibart's Big Government site.

And they're on signs people carry at anti-health care rallies:

About 40 people carried signs that read "Obamacare is bad medicine"

I didn't find another headline for today's AP article that used either "Obamacare" or "bad medicine." The Star got them straight from GOP talking points and tea party rallies.

Unbelievable. Simply unbelievable.