The White House game plan on getting this awful health care bill passed and signed involves attacking those on the left, such as Howard Dean, who point out the bill's flaws.
...The clear subtext, emerging as a genuine narrative, goes something like: you arugula-chewing liberals with your laptops and your health care plans love to poke at castles in the air, while we are focused on helping real people in real trouble. You are ideologues and we are pragmatic.
(Of course, and this is beside the point, but: this narrative has nothing at all to do with reality. The progressive base that the White House is aggressively insulting in their frenzied attempt to get this lipsticked pig passed are the same everyday Americans who need help with health coverage, and who were willing to compromise on all kinds of things in the bill before it became fundamentally flawed.)
Did I say "emerging"? How about "emerged"? Who needs the Rahm message machine when Village Elites can push the faux elite narrative for you? Ron Brownstein, today:
Maybe one reason former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean and so much of the digital Left can so casually dismiss the Senate health care reform bill is that they operate in an environment where so few people need to worry about access to insurance.
The 2004 presidential campaign that propelled Dean to national prominence was fueled predominantly by "wine track" Democratic activists-generally college-educated white liberals.
So few, huh? I'll tell that to the three white, college educated uninsured people in my circle of friends who will not be helped by this bill.
But it's no surprise Brownstein would gleefully jump into the Bash Howard meme with insulting stereotypes about Dean's supporters and the those engaged politically online.
After all, it's his schtick. Ron Brownstein in 2003, writing just the kind of piece that made me pull out what little money I had at the time to give more and do more for Dean for America:
Can Howard Dean escape the Starbucks ghetto?
New polls in Iowa and New Hampshire, the critical first two states in the Democratic presidential race, show the former Vermont governor dominating among voters with a college degree -- the sort of people more likely to stop at Starbucks than a doughnut shop in the morning.
Emanuel pointed to a New York Times column by economist Paul Krugman and another coming from National Journal writer Ronald Brownstein pressing for passage of the Senate health bill. "What you're seeing is the progressive backlash against the progressive backlash," he said.
In other news, somewhere in Vermont right now there is a child in a low-income, no-college family who is being covered thanks to Dr. Dynasaur.
