A Historic Day

Yesterday was a historic day for the citizens of the United States.  A variety of journalistic efforts responded in characteristic fashion. 

At Faux News, “The mandate is gone,” Shannon Bream, a Fox News correspondent, announced at 10:08 a.m. as a graphic flashed on the screen that called it unconstitutional. A moment later, one of the Fox anchors, Megyn Kelly, cautioned that Ms. Bream might be wrong.

“We’re getting conflicting information,” Ms. Kelly said, while reading from Scotusblog, an authoritative Web site about the court. Citing the blog, she accurately told viewers that “the individual mandate is surviving as a tax.”

Fox News did not issue an apology. In a statement, Michael Clemente, a Fox executive, said flatly, “Fox reported the facts as they came in.”

The most exciting version of yesterday’s events came from the Borowitz Report: 

“Just minutes after the Supreme Court upheld President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney slammed the Court, calling the law “the worst idea I ever had.”

“I vow to repeal this law on my first day in office,” he told a crowd at a campaign rally.  “Until then, I will work tirelessly to make people forget that I used to totally love it.”

At the White House, President Obama greeted the news of the Court’s decision in muted fashion: “I haven’t been this pumped since I smoked bin Laden.”

Dissenters in the 5-4 decision included Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote, “The only medical procedures the government should pay for are forced transvaginal ultrasounds and exorcisms.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell also had harsh words for the healthcare law, telling reporters, “Under Obamacare, you will be forced to marry a gay doctor.”

But perhaps the most negative appraisal came from Speaker of the House John Boehner: "This is a dark day for America. If we are forced to have healthcare, it's only a matter of time before we have education."”

All the news that's fit to print . . .or distort.  Just saying . . .