Next week, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on the constitutionality of ObamaCare, but if the media were the judges, the Court would rule 9-0 in favor of it. During its coverage of the health care debate, the liberal press never permitted questions about ObamaCare’s legality to interfere with their dream of a government takeover of the health care sector. 

Starting even before Barack Obama became President, the press has been campaigning hard for passage of the most liberal version of health care reform as a cure-all elixir to all of America’s health problems. First, they pitched the public on the desperate need to, as ABC’s Dr. Tim Johnson demanded, fix America’s “national shame” of no universal coverage. 

Then they ignored the history of Medicare, Medicaid and every other entitlement program as they praised the liberal plan as fiscally prudent with reporters like CBS’s Maggie Rodriguez ludicrously proclaiming it would “actually reduce the deficit” and save “billions.” 

However, it wasn’t enough to hype the plan, but also to lionize and encourage its supporters. ABC’s Diane Sawyer hailed Nancy Pelosi’s efforts to pass the politically unpopular ObamaCare as “an epic blend of persuasion, muscle and will.” NBC’s Andrea Mitchell urged Democratic Congressman Elijah Cummings to deliver a win for Obama on the issue: “You’ve got to get this for him.” 

Of course, any one who dared oppose Pelosi and her Democratic colleagues was demonized. When outraged voters started showing up at townhall meetings, at Tea Party rallies and on Capitol Hill, they were derided as “ugly” by CBS’s Chip Reid and even sexist and racist. MSNBC’s Chris Matthews obnoxiously pondered if ObamaCare opponents were “really angry about...an African American president and a woman Speaker?” Matthews’ MSNBC colleague, Ed Schultz, went as far to absurdly accuse the GOP of wanting to commit mass murder as he screamed: “The Republicans lie! They want to see you dead!”

Finally, after the bill was passed, the media took a victory lap with the likes of the Washington Post’s Steven Pearlstein as he proclaimed that with ObamaCare’s passage the U.S. had “finally” joined “the rest of the industrialized world” and restored “trust and confidence in our political process” and “in ourselves.” 

The following compilation of quotes from the MRC’s archive tells the story of the five phases of the liberal media’s quest to get the constitutionally-challenged ObamaCare passed: