by David Brock
Almost immediately following the publication of her article, Betsy McCaughey became a star in the conservative movement. Bob Dole used elements of her piece in his response to the State of the Union address, and conservative groups were soon broadcasting ads across the country based on her work. Then, after a brief tenure as lieutenant governor of New York under Governor George Pataki, McCaughey faded from the spotlight. President Obama’s push to improve the country’s health care system was the perfect opportunity for McCaughey’s return to the fray.
On July 16, 2009, McCaughey told radio host, former senator, and failed presidential candidate Fred Thompson that health care reform “would make it mandatory—absolutely require—that every five years people on Medicare have a required counseling session that will tell them how to end their life sooner.” These sessions, according to McCaughey, would teach seniors to “decline nutrition, how to decline being hydrated, how to go into hospice care … all to do what’s in society’s best interest or in your family’s best interest and cut your life short.”49
The nonpartisan, Pulitzer Prize–winning website PolitiFact.com jumped on McCaughey’s statement, rating it “Pants on Fire,” a designation reserved for the most dishonest claims. “For our ruling on this one, there’s really no gray area here,” PolitiFact explained. “McCaughey incorrectly states that the bill would require Medicare patients to have these counseling sessions and she is suggesting that the government is somehow trying to interfere with a very personal decision. And her claim that the sessions would ‘tell [seniors] how to end their life sooner’ is an outright distortion. Rather, the sessions are an option for elderly patients who want to learn more about living wills, health care proxies and other forms of end-of-life planning. McCaughey isn’t just wrong, she’s spreading a ridiculous falsehood.”50
McCaughey’s lie attracted one important follower. In August, former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin wrote on her Facebook page, “And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,’ whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.”51
With that posting, the “death panel” debate was born. Palin’s proclamation was given wall-to-wall coverage, especially on Fox News, where the former governor’s lies went unchecked. The morning after Palin published her post, Fox & Friends cohost Brian Kilmeade asked, “Are seniors going to be in front of the death panel?” Responding to his own question, Kilmeade continued, “And then just as you think, ‘Okay, that’s ridiculous,’ then you realize there’s provisions in there that seniors in the last lap of their life will be sitting there going to a panel possibly discussing what the best thing for them is.”52
Other Fox News personalities, from Glenn Beck to Andrew Napolitano, a libertarian former New Jersey state judge, echoed Palin’s distortion, never stopping to question whether or not it was true. And it wasn’t just Fox’s “opinion” hosts who were giving “death panels” credence. “Former Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin says President Obama is misleading the public about what she has called ‘death panels’ in health care reform,” reported Bret Baier. “Palin contends advanced care planning consultations, which are an element in the House reform legislation, would not be voluntary, as the president says. She lays out a detailed rebuttal on her Facebook page. The White House has named Palin as a person spreading wrong information about reform plans.”53
Over the next week, more than forty separate media outlets, including the Associated Press, debunked Palin’s outrageous claim. The lie stuck anyway. A week later, Fox News was still using the “death panel” charade to scare its viewers about health care reform. For instance, on August 19, Fox & Friends hosted network contributor Dick Morris to discuss his New York Post column from two days earlier, in which he alleged that Democratic reform proposals amounted to “one giant death panel.” During the segment, on-screen text read: “DEFACTO [sic] DEATH PANELS? OBAMA PLAN COULD RESULT IN RATIONING.”54
Palin’s false claims had a tremendous impact on the public’s perception. In a CNN/Opinion Research poll conducted on September 11–13, 2009, 41 percent of respondents believed that “death panels” were part of Obama’s health care bill.55 In December, PolitiFact singled out “death panels” as the “Lie of the Year.” A few weeks later, Sarah Palin was hired as a contributor to Fox News. More than a year later, Fox was still keeping the “death panel” rumor alive. On January 3, 2011, Andrew Napolitano, who was filling in for Glenn Beck, declared that there were now panels that would “tell Grandma and Grandpa … how and when to die.”56
As the fight over health care reform unfolded, Fox News hosts such as Beck, Hannity, and Mike Huckabee openly advocated against Democratic efforts and implored viewers to help defeat the bill. Beck warned that the health care bill would bring on “the end of America as you know it,”57 while Hannity called it “the most irresponsible piece of domestic legislation in our lifetime.”58
Even more revealing, Fox itself declared victory each time Democrats suffered a setback. After Democrats removed the provision that started the cries of “death panels,” a headline on the Fox Nation website read: “Fox Nation Victory! Senate Removes ‘End of Life’ Provision.”59 When the White House gave up on the public option, the website proclaimed: “Fox Nation Victory! Obama backs down from Gov’t-Run Health Care!”60 And when a vote on the bill was stalled, the headline boasted: “Fox Nation Victory! Congress delays health care rationing bill.”61
As the summer began, strategists in both parties understood that August would be critical in setting the tone for the fall debate on President Obama’s health care legislation. Coming into the congressional recess, Democrats had the momentum. The House had passed president Obama’s climate bill, and health care reform was making its way through Congress. If conservatives were going to succeed, they needed a shift in public perception. In April, Fox News had demonstrated that there was a viable movement to carry on the fight against the Obama agenda. The next test was to find out whether that movement could actually scare Democratic members of Congress away from the president.
In early August, Fox News aired footage from a string of unruly town hall events. The video didn’t show the orderly debate typically associated with town hall meetings, but rather lawmakers being shouted at and intimidated by their constituents.
Sean Hannity explained the strategy to his radio audience on July 29, saying, “There’s going to be no floor vote immediately [on health care reform], so members have time to go home and read the bill, which, by the way, creates the best opportunity for people to go like they did to [Democratic Senator] Claire McCaskill’s town hall meeting or go to [Democratic Congressman Russ] Carnahan’s town hall meeting or go show up wherever there’s any representative. This is your moment, your opportunity to stop this thing.”62
Local town hall meetings, which allow citizens to speak to their elected representatives face-to-face, are at the core of American democracy. Conservative strategists decided that the town halls of August 2009 would be different. Rather than engaging in civil discourse about the best way to move the nation forward, they would create disruptions, attempting to silence anyone who disagreed with them.
Although progressives had launched town hall protests in response to George W. Bush’s plan to privatize Social Security, their efforts did not receive overwhelming media coverage or control the national narrative, as the actions of conservatives would in August 2009. Of course, the left did not have a national news network at their disposal to shape the dialogue.
On June 30, the tone was set for the period to follow. Republican congressman Mike Castle of Delaware, one of the few remaining centrists in the GOP, was the presumptive Republican senatorial nominee and a strong be
t to win the seat formerly held by Vice President Joe Biden. During a town hall meeting in Georgetown, Delaware, an enraged woman held up what she said was her birth certificate and asked why Castle and other members of Congress were ignoring questions about the president’s citizenship. Castle answered that Obama was a U.S. citizen and fully qualified to be president, which led to a rousing chorus of boos from the crowd. The woman proceeded to grab the microphone and started reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.
Fox News soon began encouraging town hall outbursts on the air. On August 3, Fox & Friends analyst Peter Johnson, Jr., commented on a raucous town hall meeting held by Pennsylvania senator Arlen Specter, who had recently defected from the Republican Party to the Democrats, proclaiming, “We need to have this every day throughout August.”63 According to one report on the event, which Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius also attended, protesters “shouted and booed to drown out remarks from both officials and questions from the audience.”64
Later that morning, Steve Doocy announced that viewers could use Fox as a tool to contact members of Congress. “If you want to contact your Congress members and sound off, go to FoxNation.com,” he said. “It is a great interactive website where you can sound off, and you’ll also find your lawmakers’ phone numbers and e‑mail there. Hmm, very handy.”65 This was the call to action of an advocacy organization, not the reporting of an impartial news outlet.
The promotion continued the next day on Fox & Friends, with Gretchen Carlson calling the audience to action. “You probably have a lot on your mind for your respective members of Congress when they come home from recess,” Carlson said. “Are you gonna call them up and tell them how you really feel, or are you going to go to one of these receptions where they’re actually there in person?” Peter Johnson concluded the segment by telling a town hall protester, “We thank you for representing Americans, and we hope that other Americans get out there.”66
Hannity touted the town hall outbursts on his show, proclaiming to Dick Morris that a forum held by Senator Specter “sounded more like a Philadelphia Eagles game or a Flyers game than a town hall.”
“It sure is. We got to sign that lady up,”67 Morris replied, referring to a woman who had confronted the senator.
As the month wore on, Fox injected new controversy into the town hall protests to keep the story fresh. In an August 10 op-ed in USA Today, Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer wrote that “it is now evident that an ugly campaign is underway not merely to misrepresent the health insurance reform legislation, but to disrupt public meetings and prevent members of Congress and constituents from conducting a civil dialogue,” adding that “drowning out opposing views is simply un-American.”68 Predictably, Fox News went on the attack.
Gretchen Carlson blatantly distorted the op-ed, stating, “Nancy Pelosi says anyone who speaks out is un-American.”69 Similarly, Steve Doocy falsely claimed, “Pelosi [said] that apparently the opposing view to her is un-American.”70
As usual, Sean Hannity escalated the rhetoric. “Now, we’ve had hardworking Americans called Nazis and brownshirts and un-American by Nancy Pelosi.”71 The Nazi claim was a reference to Pelosi’s answer days earlier, when she was asked whether she believed the town hall disruptions were evidence of “legitimate grassroots opposition.” Pelosi said, “I think they’re astroturf; you be the judge. They’re carrying swastikas and symbols like that to a town meeting on health care.”72
Contrary to Hannity’s claim, Pelosi had not called anyone “brownshirts,” but had merely stated a fact. In the previous week, numerous pictures had emerged showing town hall protesters using Nazi imagery to communicate their message. For the Tea Party movement, this was par for the course.
A week later, Fox & Friends illustrated Pelosi’s point by airing footage of a town hall meeting held by Democratic Congressman Brian Baird of Washington. “If Nancy Pelosi wants to find a swastika,” one attendee declared, “maybe the first place she should look is the sleeve of her own arm.”73
Fox’s reporting painted even the most extreme protesters in a positive light. On August 19, Steve Doocy criticized Democratic congressman Barney Frank of Massachusetts for being rude to a constituent who confronted him at a town hall meeting:
DOOCY: Well, give him credit for showing up. But let’s face it: he was downright rude. Somebody asked him a question—
BRIAN KILMEADE: Smug.
DOOCY: Okay, somebody asked him a question, then he said, “On what planet do you spend most of your time?” And then to somebody else he said, “Trying to have a conversation with you would be like arguing with a dining room table.” Barney, they showed up at the senior center in Dartmouth last night for some answers. Give them some answers, don’t give them attitude.74
Doocy never mentioned the outrageous question that induced Frank’s ire: “Why do you continue to support a Nazi policy, as Obama has expressly supported this policy?”75
During the last week of August, Fox News repeatedly claimed that New Hampshire Democratic congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter had a constituent who opposed health care reform “ejected” from a meeting on the grounds that “he did not have the correct ticket to speak.”76 This was a lie.
The conservative New Hampshire Union Leader reported a statement from the local sheriff’s office: “Towards the end of the meeting, [the constituent] was escorted out of the meeting. Mr. Tomanelli was very disruptive throughout the meeting and was told repeatedly to quiet down. He continuously interrupted people who were asking questions or making statements that he didn’t agree with.”77
The coverage on Fox News left the impression that every single speaker at town halls across the country was furiously opposed to Obama’s health care plan—and that was the point. “In fact, after the president convened a low-key town hall in New Hampshire, press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters: ‘I think some of you were disappointed yesterday that the president didn’t get yelled at.’ There was a grain of truth in that,” Howard Kurtz recounted. “As Fox broke away from the meeting, anchor Trace Gallagher said, ‘Any contentious questions, anybody yelling, we’ll bring it to you.’ ”78
During the week of August 24 alone, Fox News broadcast twenty-two clips of town hall attendees speaking out against health care reform and showed not a single example of people expressing support for reform. Five times that week, Fox aired a single sound bite from an August 25 town hall meeting, where an attendee implored John McCain not to waver in his commitment to stopping the bill. “No compromises!” the constituent said. “Senator, nuke it now.”79
Fox News also gave airtime to comments such as:
“Have you ever, or any of your family members, lived under so-called socialized medicine, as I call it? I have, and I’ve had relatives living on it. And trust me, it ain’t working.”80
“I’d like to know why illegal aliens—illegal—not members of this country, don’t belong here, are gonna be insured under this … I have taken the time to look at certain provisions of the bill on the Internet. I can quote the—what is it?—the section and the page, and it definitely says that they will be insured. They don’t even belong here, and I’m paying for it.”81
“There will be rationing health care … and, in addition, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, through, with the help of pharmaceutical companies, do a lot of research and they have made great strides in helping people like Maya live normal, productive, longer lives. I’m afraid when this government option is passed, Maya’s life will not be worth anything to the government.”82
There were plenty of examples of Americans speaking out in favor of health care reform, but Fox News simply ignored them. For instance, Congressman Baird was asked why Congress was not considering a more progressive proposal for reform. “Could you please help us understand why this single-payer option is not on the table, for one?” the constituent said. “And two, could you then lead us into some understanding as to why even a public option seems to be in doubt?”83
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bsp; In another case, a town hall attendee said to McCain, “I believe you have had access to government-provided health care for most of your life, and, you know, I would imagine that most of us here are on Medicare, and there may be some who would like to give up their Medicare. No, none of us do. So what is so wrong with government-provided health care?”84
“Please support real national health care, also called universal single-payer,”85 one Minnesota resident said to Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, a Tea Party favorite.
Of course, Fox News would never give any airtime to the attendee at Virginia Democratic congressman Jim Moran’s town hall meeting who decried the overheated discourse the network was glorifying. “I’m very concerned about the quality of the debate,” the constituent said. “You know, not only the screaming of misrepresentations, but also the fact that the press really doesn’t seem to want to cover policy. You know, they want to cover gossip, and I’m very disappointed, and I would like all of you press to start covering the policy.”86
The coverage of this particular town hall meeting epitomized Fox’s entire August campaign. Host Gregg Jarrett surmised that there “seemed to be more jeers than cheers at that town hall meeting.” Bret Baier claimed, “Virginia Democratic congressman Jim Moran was greeted by boos Tuesday in Reston, and the crowd frequently interrupted him.”87
Other media outlets told a different story. According to Congressional Quarterly, conservative protesters “were overmatched by supporters of Moran and Obama, who had their own signs—or were provided them by Organizing for America, Obama’s grass-roots support group—and who were able to yell the loudest.”88 Similarly, The Washington Post reported, “Unlike at many town hall meetings that have received attention across the country, the crowd in the Democratic-leaning district was dominated by reform proponents, many carrying signs distributed by President Obama’s political action group Organizing for America.”89