Very surprising that the so-called "progressives" on the issue would take the hospital's word as god.

Even when I don't agree with you, I respect you immensly for your ability to transcend petty disputes and to look at the bigger picture.  I think that is an honorable approach and I very much appreciate your trying to do that.

There's no formula for figuring out what the media best lies about (not even CDS does this); but it is clear to me their role in this process is completely destructive.  They are simply horrible.  People would be better off watching their color bars every second they spend watching the news.  Or limiting campaign coverage to CSPAN.  

Perhaps if campaigns were publicly financed the media would be a little less lascivious?  I don't know.  

"Universal healthcare is a moral imperative." -- Clinton

How is this not enough for you?  When did Clinton say that the hospital was "evil"?  Why are you blaming her for things she hasn't said?

Good God.

The woman is making a point about how our system --the whole thing, not one "evil" hospital--has failed us.  And yet you're so determined to find a flaw in the presentation that you slide right past the fact that the dead woman's aunt has publicly verified the story.  

By the time she got to a different hospital, it was too late to save her baby, and in the days that followed, her condition must have deteriorated such that she later died.

The tragedy is that people are so intimidated by the medical system that this woman made a decision that proved fatal.  

These kinds of things happen all the time.  All the time.

When Clinton related the story she had been told, she mentioned neither the woman's name, nor the names of amy of the medical insitutions that were involved.  She protected the privacy of the woman's family.  

Maybe it was never Clinton's intention to bring this family into the glare of the media spotlight, as much as she wanted to talk about health care and how it affects real people. You know, like us, like people who can't afford health insurance, or those who can't get health insurance because of pre-existing conditions.

Instead of focusing on the issues that face us, we have the media to contend with, aided by bloggers so blinded by their partisanship that they would accept the death of health care reform as damage collateral to the nomination of a particular candidate.  A candidate who does not seem all the interested in universal health care, who is still deceiving the voters about his health care plan, who shows signs of it just not being that high a priority.  If one of Obama's biggest cheerleaders is calling Hillary's plan DOA in the Congress, it does not bode well for any kind of reform.

What's next?  A KO special comment when Hillary says she had cereal for breakfast and it turns out she had an English muffin?  A Hardball clusterf**k when they find out that Hillary wore brown shoes with a black pantsuit?  And then denied it?  Oh, the horror!

The sad truth is that if Obama is the nominee, he will arrive on the threshold of the general election season with a media hungry to finally start to pick at his platform and policies - and even hungrier to rip him apart over the composite characters in his books, his relationship with Tony Rezko, his penchant for writing his own history to cast himself in the best possible light.

The Clinton Rules state that if any part of a story is proven true, the entire story is true. The corollary is that if any part of a story about a Republican is proved to be false then the entire story is false.

The point of the story is this: This is NOT a story.  It became one when the left blogosphere and the media turned it into one completely based on the fact that they hate Clinton to the point of literal insanity.

That the media and Obama surrogates, in their eagerness to finish Hillary's candidacy off wants to find anything that provides leverage to that end, the completely failed to recognize the story for what it was.

This is what an Obama nomination will do for Democrats...a candidate and main stream media continually failing to recognize the fact that this country is in deep trouble.

The rest is just about distracting us from this truth: a woman and a child died.

This is not about Obama, not about Clinton, because: a woman and a child died.

For lack of $100.  For fear of a creditor's letter.  That is what matters.  Will your candidate speak to it?  He should.  He could pick up this story, say it is true, and show real leadership.  

 Clinton relates an anecdote and the media and Obama blogs rush all over it.  Senator Obama says something less than forthright and the media and Clinton blogs rush all over it. Partisans on both sides line up and mete out punishments.  Memes are born, die, and are resurrected.  And out of the headlines, John "Nixon Part II" McCain and his political allies plan their strategy.  

 The public is not nearly as polarized.  I live in the Sacramento area, which is evenly split between the two, and even among discussions with friends nothing approaches the vitrol you find in the media and on the internet.  People here constantly bash Kos, but do you honestly believe this site is remotely objective?  And frankly, while I get MB's comments, the only appropriate response to this story is pretty much BTD's.  This is a nonissue, the details are not remotely important, she was discussing a tragic event that many people can identify with.  She did the same thing on Ellen today, discussing a health problem faced by a gay couple.  That's clearly her talking point.  At the same time, to listen to people on this site you would think that I and other Obama backers support Chris Matthews.  Jesus, the man voted for W in 2000.  Anyone with that lack of foresight can't criticize Senator Clinton on the war.

You want people to pull together? Then stop vilifying a good Democrat like Mrs. Clinton. You re the ones who are going to destroy the party, not her. Further, if it doesn't stop, I'm simply writing your candidate off for the duration.

I will not endorse the tactics of the Obama campaign or the "hands-off" "wink, wink, nudge, nudge" tactics of the DNC with my vote. It will not happen.

But when you say here, BTD (as you have now done three times), that Clinton got it all right, you're mistaken, as your link to the WaPo story and the AP story both show. For one thing, she didn't lose her baby at the hospital that had turned her away. And that fact is where the original story emerged from when The New York Times wrote it up Saturday.

Now it can be argued - should be, in my view - that it's understandable how the details got a bit muddied in the retelling, but it cannot be argued that Clinton got everything right when she didn't. Her version distinctly implied that it was the same hospital which turned Bachtel away twice that, on the third visit, couldn't save her stillborn baby. Not so. And the insurance issue is more complicated than Clinton presented it.