N&O Attempts to Smear Healthcare Expert

A peek at Conover’s bio shows that he is “a Research Scholar in the Center for Health Policy & Inequalities Research at Duke University, an adjunct scholar at AEI”, and a book author with decades of experience in the field. Aside from mentioning Conover’s position at Duke,  the N&O could have listed any number of professional accomplishments. Instead, the N&O purposefully ignores several other credentials and decides to sum up Conover’s career in one phrase: “he called Obama a fascist!”

Such branding of course is designed to shock and appal left-wing readers too lazy or uninformed to evaluate Conover’s comments and counter with superior analysis. Rather, it gives them a chance to dismiss Conover’s research and testimony without a glance by characterizing him as a radical who has the nerve to call Obama a fascist. This is a typical tactic used by liberals/progressives to avoid meaningful debate.

Naturally, Policy Watch took the bait.

But what did Conover really say about Obama? The comments in question appear to be from recent Forbes article Conover wrote.

Conover brings up the “fascist” question in reference to a Jonah Goldberg book:

My AEI colleague, Jonah Goldberg, has written brilliantly and eloquently about “liberal fascism,” taking 24 pages to explain the intimate connection between fascism and progressivism. He notes that the term originally was coined as a badge of honor by H.G. Wells in 1932 in a speech to Oxford University’s Young Liberals in which he encouraged them to become “liberal fascists” and “enlightened Nazis.” Mr. Goldberg correctly characterizes modern liberalism as an “ideology of good intentions” and goes on to define fascism as:

“a religion of the state. It assumes the organic unity of the body politic and longs for a national leader attuned to the will of the people. It is totalitarian in that it views everything as political and holds that any action by the state is justified to achieve the common good. It takes responsibility for all aspects of life, including our health and well-being, and seeks to impose uniformity of thought and action, whether by force or through regulation and social pressure”

Conover concludes his article by reminding people that Obama had expressed his desire to ultimately usher in a comprehensive single payer health care system, and  that a single payer system “sounds great to progressive fascists like Barack Obama.”

In short, Conover labeled Obama a “progressive fascist” – which refers to someone who justifies government action to “achieve the common good”, and favors a government that takes responsibility for all aspect of our lives.

Is Conover wrong?