Episode
Frontline: Obama's Deal
Overview
Health care reform was the first big policy deal taken on by the Obama administration. Many say the young president has bet the mid-term elections, possibly his presidency, on the outcome. In a new investigation FRONTLINE goes behind closed doors at the White House, in Congress and the boardrooms of the giant health-care lobby to examine the political battles and costly compromises that defined Barack Obama's endeavor. From early positive efforts, through the bitter battles with the Tea Party, the elation of apparent success at Christmas, to the crushing failure in the Massachusetts Senatorial election, FRONTLINE follows the story and reveals the first in-depth look at how the Obama administration operates. In Obama's Deal, FRONTLINE veteran producer Michael Kirk (Bush's War, Dreams of Obama, Inside the Meltdown, The Warning) provides a sobering expose' of the realities of American politics, the power of special interest groups, and the role of money in policy making.
Details
- Series
- Frontline
- Season
- Season 28
- Episode
- Episode 6
- Air date
- 2010-04-13
Episode context
Obama's Deal is Episode 6 in Season 28 of Frontline. It aired on 2010-04-13.
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Episode 5: The Quake
On January 12, 2010, Haiti was leveled by one of the most devastating earthquakes in recorded history. Those responsible for handling the catastrophe, including the Haitian state and the United Nations, were crippled by the magnitude of the disaster and struggled to respond. In the confused aftermath, survivors were left without food, water or shelter. FRONTLINE correspondent Martin Smith and team arrived in Port-au-Prince within days, and in this powerful report, bears witness to the disaster and the ill-coordinated relief efforts in the poorest country in the Western hemisphere. Drawing on interviews with key officials and humanitarian experts from Port-au-Prince to New York, The Quake asks, can the world do better? And how?
Episode 7: The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan
In Afghanistan today, in the midst of war and endemic poverty, an ancient tradition ? banned when the Taliban were in power ? has re-emerged across the country. It?s called Bacha Bazi, translated literally as ?boy play.? Hundreds of boys, some as young as 11, street orphans or boys bought from poor families by former warlords and powerful businessmen, are dressed in women?s clothes, taught to sing and dance for the entertainment of male audiences and then sold to the highest bidder or traded among the men for sex. With remarkable access inside a Bacha Bazi ring operating in northern Afghanistan, Afghan journalist Najibullah Quraishi investigates this practice, still illegal under Afghan law, talking with the boys, their families and their masters, exposing the sexual abuse and even murders of the boys, and documenting how Afghan authorities responsible for stopping these crimes are sometimes themselves complicit in the practice.
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