Welcome to Milwaukee Live

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

ABC Drawing Fire for Obama only Infomercial, I mean Townhall

Republicans and critics of Democrat-led health care reform are stepping up their counter-offensive in response to ABC News' scheduled prime-time special Wednesday on President Obama's health care proposals.

The special -- called "Questions for the President: Prescription for America" -- will be a town hall-style event in which Obama will answer questions on health care posed by audience members selected by ABC News. The network has refused to accept advocacy ads during the hour-long show, drawing criticism from those who say the special will be woefully one-sided.

"It doesn't make sense to me. It seems like with health care we've got to have a debate," said Rick Scott, who heads advocacy group Conservatives for Patients' Rights. "We're going to change possibly everybody's health care in this country, so we have to have a debate. But what you want is you want all sides. So I don't understand how (ABC News) can defend what they're doing."

Scott said his group was rebuffed when it asked ABC News to run its ad criticizing the president's health care pitch.

ABC has said the network has a "longstanding" policy not to accept advocacy ads, and that it even refused to air Obama's extended infomercial the week before the November presidential election for that reason.

Scott, though, said he found instances in which ABC News had run advocacy ads and in a letter this week notified the network of the apparent discrepancy. - FOX News Story

No comments: