Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) was a guest on Fox News Sunday this morning where he backed down from his plan to threaten to shut down the government if Obamacare was not defunded. It was big enough news that Huffington Post and Politico reported on it. But Wallace let Lee's flip-flop pass unremarked.
You may recall that last week, as Huffington Post reported, Lee said - on Fox News, no less - "If Republicans in both houses simply refuse to vote for any continuing resolution that contains further funding for further enforcement of Obamacare, we can stop it. We can stop the individual mandate from going into effect.”
HuffPo also noted that in a later radio interview, Lee vowed to "utilize every procedural mechanism at my disposal to do it. ... I think a corresponding effort is starting to be kicked off in the House. And I expect these numbers to grow steadily as Americans realize the president has said he’s not going to implement the law as written. If he’s not going to implement the law, we shouldn’t be forced to fund it.”
But today, not so much. Lee told Wallace, "We all know that the government is going to get funded. The only question is whether the government gets funded with ObamaCare or without it?" Politico wrote, "Pressed repeatedly on 'Fox News Sunday' by host Chris Wallace on whether he's prepared to shut down the government over defunding the new health care law, Lee said that's an unlikely conclusion.
It's true that Wallace pressed Lee pretty hard on the subject. But you'd think Wallace would have then noted Lee's apparent reversal.