President Defends Health Care Reform In Broadcast Blitz

President Obama sought to blanket the airwaves with an impassioned defense of his health-care reform effort Sunday during back-to-back broadcasts of taped interviews on five morning news programs. In interviews conducted Friday in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, President Obama acknowledged being "humbled" by the challenge of "breaking through" in the complicated and emotional battle over health-care reform. The president's talk show grand slam, conversations with CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS and Univision was a remarkable — and remarkably overt — display of media management. No other president has been a guest on so many Sunday talk shows at once, which signaled how much President Obama wanted to reclaim the health care debate and persuade skeptics that his plans would not increase taxes on the middle class. But for so well-spoken and confident a president, the lack of spontaneity on Sunday was striking. So was the homogeneity: President Obama appeared on Univision, but he drew the line at Fox. Chris Wallace of "Fox News Sunday" bemoaned the presidential slight, asking, "Whatever happened to reaching out to all Americans?" He told Bill O'Reilly that the White House aides were "a bunch of crybabies." Apparently, the feeling is mutual. "We figured Fox would rather show 'So You Think You Can Dance' than broadcast an honest discussion about health insurance reform," a White House deputy press secretary told ABC News on Saturday. "Fox is an ideological outlet where the president has been interviewed before and will likely be interviewed again; not that the whining particularly strengthens their case for participation any time soon."