George Will: Media ginning up comeback for public option in health care reform

George Will on Sunday accused the media of manufacturing the return of government mandated healthcare to the current reform debate.

Discussing the subject on the recent installment of ABC's "This Week," Will said it was highly unlikely Democrats actually have the votes for what they call a "public option," but the media are assisting them in "cleverly and skillfully manufacturing a sense of inevitability that they hope will be self-fulfilling."

(snip)

GEORGE WILL, ABC: Arguably to a collaborative media. That is although they cannot identify a single Republican vote as Al [Hunt] demonstrated in his interview with Olympia Snowe, the Democratic leaders have said, "We've got the votes." Now that means they're gonna get the votes of Evan Bayh of Indiana, Ben Nelson of Florida, of Sen. Nelson of Nebraska, which is to say they're not going to lose a single, so-called moderate Democrat. I think there is, they're cleverly and skillfully manufacturing a sense of inevitability that they hope will be self-fulfilling. I'm still dubious.