Desperate Times Call For Desperate Headlines

I refer to today's Washington Post story on Obama's march to socialized medicine:

Reform Opposition Is High but Easing

Reminds me of all the headlines about the economy, where a drop of over a quarter-million jobs is "good news on the economy" because the month before over 300,ooo folks were added to the unemployment rolls.

But the article is funny, albeit unintentionally. We get this in the beginning of paragraph 2 -

But after a summer of angry debate and protests, opposition to the effort has eased somewhat...

- leading us to believe, of course, that opposition to Obamacare has in fact eased. Somewhat. But when you need to get to paragraph 7 before the Post starts tossing out numbers, you know it ain't gonna be good. Six paragraphs of bluster brings us to this:

Americans remain almost deadlocked in their opinion of the Democrats' health-care initiative, with 46 percent in favor of the proposed changes and 48 percent opposed.

So a big primetime speech before a joint session of Congress - the big play most presidents keep in their pockets until the last minute - netted him approximately two "rating points" (from 50% unfavorable in the last), which is well within the margin of error. In other words, Obama's big, smart gamble netted him...nothing.

But wait! The WaPo finds more "good news":

But since mid-August, the percentage "strongly" behind the president on health care has risen to 32 percent, evening out the intensity gap that has plagued him on the subject.

Well, what do you expect after the president give such an angry hyper-partisan speech? He got the faithful riled up, but did not convert one soul.

For a would-be messiah, that's a colossal failure. No matter how many shiny happy colors the media uses to paint the story...