by Jed Lewison
On Sunday, media outlets tripped over themselves to declare the death of the public option after Kathleen Sebelius told CNN's John King that a public option is "not the essential element" of health care reform.
In chasing the Sebelius comments, those very same media outlets ignored Robbert Gibbs' appearance on CBS' Face The Nation in which he both defended the public option and reiterated the President's support for it.
Meanwhile, Kent Conrad and Fox News eagerly to exploited the Sebelius quote, with Conrad
declaring that support for the public option is a "wasted effort."
moreThe media also ignored this part of Sebelius' comment:
“I think there will be a competition to private insurers,” Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in an interview that aired Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union, “that really is the essential part, that you don’t turn over the whole new marketplace (after health care legislation is enacted) to private insurance companies and trust them to do the right thing. We need some choices, we need some competition.”