[O]ver the weekend, two of The Huffington Post’s best reporters — Sam Stein and Ryan Grim — reported what has long been apparent (and echoed by other outlets such as TPM): namely, that while Obama repeatedly claims in public to support a “public option” for health care reform, the Obama White House, in private, has been actively opposing attempts to include that provision in the final health care bill, a priority of very high importance to many of his progressive supporters.

As a result, Obama-venerating readers of Daily Kos this morning have declared Huffington Post to be suspect, untrustworthy, and even “right-wing” in a top recommended diary. A poll accompanying that dairy finds that 57% of readers believe that Huffington Post — which just recently hired Dan Froomkin as its Washington Bureau Chief — “is turning conservative.” In other words, Huffington Post reported on facts which reflect poorly on the leader and which contradict what they are eager to believe. Anyone who does that must be discredited, impugned and declared to be the enemy. That way, the unpleasant facts can be dismissed away by attacking those who point them out, and fantasies of the leader can be blissfully maintained. Doesn’t that also sound familiar?

see you guys later

Good night firedogs