Are Conservatives Really Going After Michelle Obama for Promoting Water? [View all]

[Tx4obama]

Are Conservatives Really Going After Michelle Obama for Promoting Water?

Last night, Bill Maher made a joke that may have just become reality. During a discussion about the GOP’s tendency to “blacktrack” (Maher’s term) on long-held positions just because President Obama happens to agree with them, the host suggested that the White House may be testing Republicans with First Lady Michelle Obama’s new public health campaign.

The riff got a huge laugh for Maher’s liberal audience, and also from his one conservative guest, former RNC chairman Michael Steele. The idea that anyone could criticize Michelle Obama for promoting hydration is preposterous, right? Well…

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Some conservatives have been quick to jump on Michelle Obama for her “scientific” claims, pointing to a POLITICO story that quotes experts who claim there are discernible benefits from drinking one extra glass of water a day. Rush Limbaugh called it “just more command-and-control” from the Obama White House. The Washington Times went after the “the nation’s most prominent anti-obesity crusader” for misleading the public. And the Washington Free Beacon blasted the headline, “Michelle Obama’s Drink More Water Campaign Based on Faulty Science.”

And who’s the expert that most of these sites point to? That would be Dr. Stanley Goldfarb of the University of Pennsylvania, who said, “There really isn’t data to support this. I think, unfortunately, frankly, they’re not basing this on really hard science. It’s not a very scientific approach they’ve taken. … To make it a major public health effort, I think I would say it’s bizarre.”

Dr. Goldfarb, it just so happens, has spent a good amount of time arguing against Obamacare as a contributor to conservative publications like David Frum’s FrumForum and The Weekly Standard. That doesn’t mean that he’s being disingenuous about his opposition to the “Drink Up” program, or lying about the medical facts, but it does call into question his motives for speaking out so loudly against it.

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Full article here: http://www.mediaite.com/tv/are-conservatives-really-going-after-michelle-obama-for-promoting-water/