Days of Change

Day 1217 – How Democrats Breitbarted America

Andrew Breitbart knew the was against the media. It was the perception filter through which everyone sees reality on TV or in movies or in popular culture.

Breitbart was constantly trying to find ways around or through the filter. One of his best tricks was when a leftist network brought him on for the purpose of ambushing him. Instead, he would be loaded with examples of how that host was completely biased and untrustworthy. This MSNBC interview is a classic.

The key is not to react to stories. You have to become the story. After Obama’s predictable bumbling on the mandate to religious institutions to pay for prescriptions and procedures they objected to on religious grounds, Democrats were desperate to find a way to spin this as liberal candy and not an assault on liberty. They had the advantage of owning the filters. Instead of having to disrupt the narrative, they just created a new one.

Rush Limbaugh explained the process fairly succinctly. When Darrell Issa held hearings on the impact that the Obamacare mandate would have on religious freedom, Democrats submitted a witness name, Rev. Barry Lynn. Lynn headed a group for the separation of Church and State, presumably advocating the removal of certain religious discretion. Democrats submitted another name, Sandra Fluke (pronounced like fluck) with no credentials at all.

As this story points out, the committee accepted Lynn, who had an opinion on the legal status of religious organizations. was accepted at the last minute, but Fluke was not. at 4:30 the day before the hearing, Democrats wanted to replace Lynn with Fluke. Issa said no, since what little they could find out about Fluke was that she had nothing to say about the Constitutionality of government mandates on religious organizations. Democratic committee members immediately used the visual of the hearing as a willful exclusion of women. Again, the only woman proposed by Democrats had no knowledge about law and religion.

The Democrats then took testimony in a steering committee, which was the equivalent of a one-party free-for-all. Fluke testified about the high cost of prescription contraceptives and the dangers of not affording them when they are necessary for medical conditions unrelated to contraception. This is an argument for Obamacare, but not for the violation of the First Amendment. Need is not a sufficient reason, otherwise the courts could compel priests to divulge the content of confessions under penalty of incarceration.

One can argue that Rick Santorum and Rush Limbaugh “fell into the trap” of talking about sex and drugs instead of religious liberty, but the wheels were in motion. Even before the Limbaugh story, people were getting riled up over the all-male committee meeting or the sexism of not covering contraception under insurance and covering (insert male problem here) instead. There was enough outrage to get to 5. Santorum brought it to 6. Limbaugh got it to 8.5.

This situation will blow over. It will have the effect of distracting from Obama’s unconstitutional power grab and coarsen the debate just a little more. At this point, the only debate we’ll get is coarse. If you’re being disagreeable, you’re being heard. It’s time to Breitbart the media. It’s time for war.

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