The untimely death of the conservative media genius, Andrew Breitbart, came during a week where the lesson he taught us about media manipulation of the voters in support of leftwing Democratic goals was yet again manifest.

William Jacobson set out perfectly the danger of a second Obama term in office:

The threat of an Obama unrestrained by the need to be reelected is a theme I've hit on repeatedly with regard to Israel. There is no doubt that but for the need to keep Jewish votes and money coming, Obama would have lowered the hammer on Israel even more than he has. Obama will force his vision of a settlement on Israel in a second term.

Domestically, Obama has shown a willingness to use the power of his presidency to force deals (e.g. auto bailout) which extinguish or diminish property rights, direct government funds to companies run by campaign donors, slow walk compliance with judicial orders (the Gulf drilling ban), direct stimulus funds as de facto public sector employee union subsidies, and use regulatory powers under the sweeping ObamaCare and Dodd-Frank bills to reshape almost every aspect of the economy.

And all that is knowing he needs to be reelected.

The Fourth Greatest President Ever in his own mind wants to be the Greatest President Ever in his own mind.

We cannot afford the Greatest President Ever in his own mind.

He has no positive accomplishments, no record on which to run so he and his party are reaching once again to the bottom of their bag of tricks, charging their opposition with racism and sexism at every turn.

Caught by surprise when the Catholic Church dug in its heels at his effort to emasculate it by forcing it to fund abortion, contraception and sterilization insurance against its own tenets, they and their media cheerleaders decided to pose the fight as one between those who are for womens rights and those who oppose them.

Senator Roy  Blunt (R.,Mo.) offered up an amendment  which would have  given the administration a face saving way out of the quicksand, an amendment to Obamacare to include a conscience protection which existed for more than 220 years before the wonks at HHS decided to do away with it.  The New York Times shamelessly mischaracterized the Amendment:  

The proposal, offered by Senator Roy Blunt, Republican of Missouri, as an amendment to a highway bill, says that health insurance plans and employers may refuse to provide or pay for coverage of "specific items or services" if the coverage would be "contrary to the religious beliefs or moral convictions of the sponsor, issuer or other entity offering the plan."

Mr. Reid denounced the proposal, saying it "would allow any employer anywhere in our country to deny coverage for virtually any health service for virtually any reason."

Contrary to the Times' make believe version of the Bill, a fantasy pushed by liberal opponents of it, the Bill stated only this:

(b) RESPECT FOR RIGHTS OF CONSCIENCE.-
(1) IN GENERAL.-Section 1302(b) of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Public Law 111-148; 42 U.S.C. 18022(b)) is amended by adding at the end the following new paragraph:

(6) RESPECTING RIGHTS OF CONSCIENCE WITH REGARD TO SPECIFIC ITEMS OR SERVICES.-

''(A) FOR HEALTH PLANS.-A health plan shall not be considered to have failed to provide the essential health benefits package described in subsection (a) (or preventive health services described in section 2713 of the Public Health Service Act), to fail to be a qualified health plan, or to fail to fulfill any other requirement under this title...

It was defeated 51-48 almost on a pure party line vote. (The exceptions were Democrats Joe Manchin, Bob Casey and Ben Nelson who are up for re-election and voted for it, and Republican Olympia Snowe who surprisingly announced this week she was not running for re-election.)

The NYT's utter mischaracterization of the issue should be no surprise to careful readers of the paper. This week it ran this preposterous headline:  "Beheadings Raise Doubts That Taliban Have Changed."  And Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit) asked if this  week's correction was the best NYT correction yet:  "A previous version of this article misstated how many of the president's proposals to reduce the country's reliance on imported oil were new in his speech on Wednesday. None of them were, not one of them."  My friend Rick Ballard says the paper and the rest of "the maintrickle media exist to deceive and mislead and they move ever closer to disproving the 'no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the average American' adage."

Not only did the Democrats push away the lifeline Blunt offered them, but they continued to mischaracterize  and demagogue the issue. Chuck Schumer said the amendment was the equivalent of a "contraception  ban." The president of NOW , an organization that  should have lost all credibility when it continued to support Bill Clinton, announced that the bishops really want the police power of the state to prevent women from taking birth control.

Still, even they must have known that this wasn't  winning over a lot of the skeptics, and so Nancy Pelosi offered up space to a Georgetown University Law school student named  Sandra Fluke, who whined that because that Catholic university doesn't provide contraceptive coverage in its health care insurance she had to pay $3,000 over a three year period for it.  Representative Pelosi trembled with joy to have a dog and pony show artiste like this to make her point to the low information voters. It matters not, I suppose that the Weekly Standard went to the Target near Georgetown and found that the cost of generic birth control pills was $9 per month, which meant the true cost of allowing the university to follow its religious precepts over Fluke's need for contraception was about $300.00. Nor did anyone note that the $300 tab would be paid by students who were less randy than Ms Fluke.  (To the outrage of ObamaCare supporters, Rush Limbaugh and others dared to make fun of this absurd testimony.

The extent of the Fluke deception is becoming clearer by the day, as revealed by Jammie Wearing Fools:

For me the interesting part of the story is the ever-evolving "coed".  I put that in quotes because in the beginning she was described as a Georgetown law student. It was then revealed that prior to attending Georgetown she was an active women's right advocate. In one of her first interviews she is quoted as talking about how she reviewed Georgetown's insurance policy prior to committing to attend, and seeing that it didn't cover contraceptive services, she decided to attend with the express purpose of battling this policy. During this time, she was described as a 23-year-old coed. Magically, at the same time Congress is debating the forced coverage of contraception, she appears and is even brought to Capitol Hill to testify. This morning, in an interview with Matt Lauer on the Today show, it was revealed that she is 30 years old, NOT the 23 that had been reported all along.

In other words, folks, you are being played. She has been an activist all along and the Dems were just waiting for the appropriate time to play her.

You can be sure that Ms Fluke will not vanish from the spotlight after this bit of silliness. She surely will find a nice post-graduation slot at some "public interest" outfit, yammering for more free stuff for women and children.

 Some critics demanded that Republicans admonish Limbaugh for using "the public airwaves" to attack a citizen. These same defenders of private citizen's are silent as the President uses the power of the White House to demonize and personally attack the Kochs, oil companies, and others.

As the media focus our attention on poor Ms Fluke and demonize Obama's critics, the Administration sends the First Lady out for photo ops of her supporting the troops while with little media coverage her husband slashes soldiers' medical benefits.  Breitbart's Big Government turned the spotlight on this real outrage. 

President Obama's new medical proposal seeks to save $1.8 billion from the Tricare medical system in the fiscal 2013 budget and $12.9 billion by 2017, the latter amount adding up to 0.99% of the $1.3 trillion deficit for a single year built into Obama's proposed budget. To accomplish this spending reduction, service members should expect a 30% to 78% increase in Tricare annual premiums for the first year. In five years, service members will expect an increase ranging from 94% to 345%.

The average annual salary for a four year single enlistee is approximately $34k. If that service member were married with dependents, the salary increases to approximately $42k. Are those numbers enough to make any sane person want to enlist today, knowing they will likely ship off to some foreign land to fight a losing war like that in Afghanistan? Are those numbers enough to justify risking one's life-enough to afford an increased medical premium that could be raised by 78% just this year or 345% by the time their initial enlistment is over?

Make no mistake; the President is downsizing our military, and this new military medical initiative is one sure way he will see volunteers leave the military knowing their benefits are jeopardized. At a time when Iran threatens the free world, Afghanistan's violence is on a rise, and North Korea remains unstable, is now the time to play with our service members' well-being?

President Obama has taken an unprecedented action, crippling the livelihoods of our most worthy federal employees-our troops. And it's easy to see who's pushing for this change-the very elements that pushed for Obamacare and the recent contraception scandal, the political donors who represent America's health industry.