We hate the current health care bill, for reasons to be skipped here. But we agree that given the enormous sums that are wasted on health care in this country, the huge lapses that occur in care anyway, the enormous and unnecessary insurance company costs and de facto intrusions (if you give your health care money to your health insurance company you don’t have it for the test you needed yesterday that they deny or play around with for for weeks) between doctor and patient, and the absolutely gargantuan government expenditures on health care, reforming our current system seems like a good idea.

Just not via a bad idea.

However, Lanny Davis has penned an editorial for the Wall Street Journal Editorial pages, which is to objective and non partisan analysis what the San Diego Chargers are to winning clutch playoff games at home against a lesser Jets team the past ten years.

This editorial is in some ways so bad, it defies description. We’ll let provocateur Glenn Greenwald explain:

Last night, Evan Bayh blamed the Democrats’ problems on “the furthest left elements,” which he claims dominates the Democratic Party — seriously.  And in one of the dumbest and most dishonest Op-Eds ever written, Lanny Davis echoes that claim in The Wall St. Journal:  ”Blame the Left for Massachusetts” (Davis attributes the unpopularity of health care reform to the “liberal” public option and mandate; he apparently doesn’t know that the health care bill has no public option [someone should tell him], that the public option was one of the most popular provisions in the various proposals, and the “mandate” is there to please the insurance industry, not “the Left,” which, in the absence of a public option, hates the mandate; Davis’ claim that “candidate Obama’s health-care proposal did not include a public option” is nothing short ofan outright lie).

We don’t agree with the “furthest left” elements, whatever they are. But blaming the Democrats problems on the “furthest left” elements (unless, by blame, Bayh means the inability and unwillingness to connect with, show and sell to American without presuming what America thinks, feels, perceives or assumes) is like one time Arizona Representative (and future McCain opponent) J.D. Hayworth blaming the recent economic collapse on George Soros or Chuck Schumer.

The Democrats problems come down to two things. One, Democrats allow their opponens to control, shape, and frame the debate. Two, Democrats don’t even tend to realize what this entails, or that they do it. And if we had to add a third, it would be Democrats resistance to what this idea actually means.

What other party would be losing their effective majority in the Senate and White House by seeing their number drop not from 50 to 49, but from 60 to 59?

And because Democrats seem to be constantly afraid of what their opponents will say (largely because they allow their opponents to control the debate, but they miss this), and afraid of saying what they believe, why they believe it, and showing and selling it to the country. As a result, they pass piece of crap more government control no underlying problem solving pieces of legislation because they think that that is what is going to get them re-elected, when the irony is, it is what is going to get their opponents re-elected.

Update: Lanny Davis says the election was not about the candidate, but about the message.  Timothy Egan, writing today in the NY Times (covered here) points out the following:

Coakley belittled the retail politics of her opponent, who stood in the cold of a Bruins hockey game at Fenway Park, thus disparaging three great New England institutions a single two-second sound bite. It follows, then, that she didn’t know that Curt Schilling, the Boston pitcher who bled through his sox, was a Red Sox fan. Stealing a page from Mike Dukakis when he decided to spend August mowing his lawn while the 1988 presidential contest slipped away from him, her campaign essentially went dark with a double-digit lead. And she did what no Kennedy had ever done — she took the voter for granted.

Effectively showing how one’s opponent is either deceiving and misleading voters, or profoundly wrong, and either way can’t be trusted, is the most valuable thing one can do in politics. Belittling one’s opponents, in a way that also impugns some of the very target voters that need to be reached, as if one is speaking only to an audience that already agrees with everything one has to say and is full support, is one of the worst things one can do. Democrats do it all the time.

But what about Davis’ point about the message itself?  He writes, of the Democrats message, “How is it that so few people have heard that message?”  He is right on that point. And we have made it ourselves, here.

But Davis also writes:

In the last several months, the minority congressional Republicans have dominated the message on health care—and stamped on the Democratic Party the perception that we stand for big government, higher taxes, and health insecurity when it comes to Medicare.

This comes from two things. First, nothing to do with the issue, but who has controlled the issue. Once again Democrats opponents.  This is the doing of all Democrats, and the DNC, not just the “left.”  Second, it is because the bill has in fact in some ways become these things, while at the same time it has failed to address the root of the problem.

And why is that? Because, ironically, the alleged “non left” wing of the party has demanded these concessions in order to get re-elected (they think) and thus in fact turned the bill into just such a spectacle of bigger government, rather than just consist of the empty rhetoric that had predated the calls for legitimate health care reform, which were based upon neither liberal nor conservative principles at heart, and could just as easily have been used to lower government costs and wastes, as to provide, heaven to mercy “universal” coverage for people.

Ironically, the supposedly more “liberal” option, which was that if the government was going to try and curb costs and expend funds, it should provide an option to insurance companies was more popular than this ridiculous mandate as to our how we address our own care — rendered even worse by the simple fact that most health insurance coverage in this country, presently, both costs a fortune, and is a veritable abomination of control, inconsistencies, forced interjection between doctor and patient, and endless paperwork and needless hassles.

But it was this line from Davis’ piece that really makes one want to tear their hair out:

We liberals need to reclaim the Democratic Party with the New Democrat positions of Bill Clinton and the New Politics/bipartisan aspirations of Barack Obama—a party that is willing to meet half-way with conservatives and Republicans even if that means only step-by-step reforms on health care and other issues that do not necessarily involve big-government solutions.

“We liberals”? Who is he talking to?  Putting that issue aside, his proscription is to let the far right define the terms, and then accomodate to the far right’s demands, rather than simply sell, show, explain and frame, their own position, beliefs, and reasonings.  This fits in perfectly with the absolute donkeyness of this, regarding this whole heath care debacle, in the first place, where Democrats have managed to allow their opponents to take control of the Senate, effectively, with just over 40 out of 100 member, when for close to eight years, Democrats themselves couldn’t accomplish this with larger numbers than Republicans have right now.

Real Donkeys, the kinds with four legs, ought to be hiding in holes in shame.

And then Davis plays right into this right wing framing of liberals and Democrats of favoring “big government” solutions.  Republican consultants would have paid Davis money to write this, if they had to. And he (presumably) did it for them, for free.

But Davis, worst of all, misses the fact that it is the current bill which is a perfect example of big government that mandates and intrudes, while doing little in return to protect freedoms or reduce costs at the same time, and that had the bill been better written — exactly what Davis, backwardly, seems to think would have made it more unpalatable — it would have accomplished far more, with far less infringment and legitimate complaint of big government overtone, and been far more politically successful for Democrats, throughout the country, and our national discussion.

This is why, dear reader, Democrats lose, and spend most of their time, complaining about the ramifications of those losses, despite the fact that more people in America are Democrats than Republicans.

Does Brown’s Senate Win Mean End of Health Reform?

This was the actual title.

And it’s not like Time pulled this out of the blue. Many Democrats and other sources before the election, had been wondering the same thing. Maloney: Health Care Dies if Coakley Loses.  Here are a few more examples of this. And our favorite of them all “If Coakley loses, I don’t see how we can get this done.”

We thought this was all a big gag played simultaneously by both google’s search engines and all the major publications and spokespeople, since, obviously one random person’s vote is pretty much inconsequential.

And then it dawned on us. If they lose this election, they lose their “majority”!

Of course, in the world of Democratic politics, majority for them means 60 percent of the votes, not, as one would quite sensibly imagine, 51%; while for their opponents, a majority means only 41%, once again, instead of the 51% that one would expect.

Of course, here’s a commenter on the hot political insider blog “The Note” at ABC who obviously must be smoking crack, or has received their math training at the George Bush School of math and deficit reduction.  Because, while we don’t know that a better bill has to be more “progressive,” they make the seemingly insane suggestion that “maybe if Coakley loses, the Dems will decide that 51 votes are a winning number.”

Yes, of course, in a world where 51 is larger than 49.  But in Democrat Politics world, 51 is smaller than 49, and 59 is smaller than 41, when those 41 are the big, bad, huff and puff and blow your house down Republicans, who will “keep the bill from passing,” mainly, because, well, they want to.

We’re not saying that the ability of the minority to sometimes serve as a check upon the will of the majority in our Congress is not a critical part of our basic system of government.  It is.  We are saying, however, that this new millennium, it only seems to go one way, as Democrats repeatedly both allow, and play right into, their opponent’s framing, and often control, of the issues.

Also consider, throughout most of this decade, when Democrats had an actual minority in the Senate and faced an opposition party president (much like the situation is now for Republicans), how many times did the Democrats nevertheless control the Senate?

Zero.

Yet Democrats are allowing Republicans to do it to them, now.

Why is that?

Here’s the worst part. Instead of getting the point of this rhetorical question, Democrats will actually provide what are, to them, “answers” to it. That’s apparently what makes them Democrats.

As for the health care bill itself, if it does get waylaid –and we don’t buy passionately made, but we think incredibly lame and defeatist, arguments that waylaying it means the issue is done, and suggest instead that the issue be covered and sold more accurately, along with writing a much better bill — we’re not sure this is the negative that Democrats seem to think that it is.

That is, this bill seems to do more for health insurance companies — the source of most of the problem (and source of the incredible amounts wasted on health care in this country) — than it does to address the problem itself.

Let’s put the core of the problem in blockquotes here to emphasize it:

We’re spending almost one fifth of our total GDP on health care in this country.  While at the same time, many people don’t have access to good health care, many others experience poor care, and insurance companies are routinely coming between patients and their doctors. And we’re spending well over half a trillion dollars a year in government funds on health care as part of that total spending. Democrats changed this bill to make it more “passable” and in so doing gave some of the very few legitimate right wing complaints against it more meaning while of course serving as yet another example of the influence of big industry lobbying power on capitol hill, to the detriment of taxpayers. And Democrats can’t get one single Republican on board by simply making it a better bill? Or, with a solid majority in both houses without Martha Coakley and the support of the White House, pass a decent bill that a majority of Americans would understand and appreciate?

Heck, even if Democrats took off that last clause (because they have decided that unlike their opponents, they can’t sell or explain anything other than to their “base,” which keeps telling them how brilliant their explanations are, and how “obvious” it all is) do they really think a majority of Americans understand and appreciate the current bill?

Here’s the bottom line:  Instead of focusing on random Senator, write a better bill that addresses the root problems, lowers costs, and does not mandate or dictate to people what to do, and stop allowing Republicans to control them, for once.

How come you knew that the way to beat these guys was to put em on defense.

The common sense mind boggles. It reels.  Very uncharacteristically, it grasps for air.  Truly, Democrats did not know this. And this is what, more than anything else, defines the past nine years.  The story behind the story — as always, more important than the one that is commonly “known,” or maintained.

How come you knew that the way to beat these guys was to put em on defense.

Mind you, Matthews is not talking about just Republicans here, or even the “Right,” but the far right (as he illustrates by way of example at the outset), which has come to take over, and largely define the Republican Party today.

Largely because Democrats did not know. Among other things, not so known.

Update: Matthews says something else pretty interesting on that video.  Minute 2:00

Why did the Democrats spend the last year or so attacking the way things are, as  a way of getting them fixed.

There are some things wrong with this statement; it plays to right wing framing, and it is somewhat misleading.  But there is also a great deal of truth in it. Or, more accurately a great deal of truth, in terms of how things are perceived. Democrats spend an unfailingly small amount of time defining the issues, and an even unfailingly smaller amount of time, defining their opponents.

Matthews, bad as he is, is not making these statements in a totalvacuum.  Democrats have spent a lot of time telling Americans what their opponents are, concluding what there opponents are, noting how “obvious” it is what there opponents are, but they have spent precious little time defining their opponents. Or even defining the issues, for that matter.

They usually play defense. It’s almost as if the Right is paying them. But it’s not. Democrats really seem to ofteh think that everyone knows what they “know” and so engage accordingly.  And this gets wildly self reinforced online, where the phenomenon is even worse.

Grayson — a pretty bright guy, self made, wildly rich, grew up dirt poor, put himself through Harvard and Harvard Law — may also think a lot of this stuff is obvious. But at least he shows what this stuff is.  And he does not play unnecessary defense.

As we noted earlier, Republicans fear him, because, as he put it;

The Republicans are serious about getting rid of me, because they are scared.  They have already set up a site to attack me. And the reason is simple; they don’t want my tough attitude to rub off on other Democrats.

No doubt. Whether Republicans  realize it, or not; they don’t.

By the way, it is important  to note — particularly given the level of vitriol on the web — that tough attitude is not defined by getting mad and calling people names.  It is defined by showing the case to the American people, breaking it down into terms that they — and not just the self reinforcing choir — can understand, and by turning their opponents miscues and misrepresentations into defining stories about them; not playing into them, and, as Matthews put it, “playing defense.”

Update II: We heard Matthews’ statement incorrectly.  Which lead to a fairly interesting analysis of how Democrats are often perceived to be “complaining.”  It turns out that we had it backward, and heard “did” when Matthews said “did not.”  Matthews: Why didnt the Democrats spend the last year or so attacking the way things are, as  a way of getting them fixed.

Well, interestingly, before agreeing with Matthews (well, agreeing with the opposite of what he was saying) we first noted “There are several things wrong with this statement” (the statement that was, in fact, the opposite of what Matthews was saying.)  Frankly, we don’t like the new “correct” statement either, but this is in some measure a function of framing. If Matthews simply meant “Why didn’t Democrats make the case as to what the issues are,” and then of course tie those into their opponents’ leadership and constant rhetoric, then it works.

From this morning’s fundraising email from the NRCC, signed by [Joe] Wilson:

There has been a lot of debate on what is true in the debate over government-run healthcare. But Democrats continue to spin and mislead the public in an attempt to stifle honest and open debate …..If we can raise more money than the Democrats, we’ll send a message .

From the DCCC’s fundraising email, signed by Paul Begala:

“You Lie!” That was one Republican Congressclown’s response to President Obama’s call for action on health insurance reform…Classy….But now the very liars who heckled President Obama for calling them out are raising millions of dollars off of their rude, dishonest attack — and even claiming victory in the media for it!

We think this sets up the Republicans perfectly for not just a fundraising email, but a full blown TV ad, that should say something like this:

Can you believe it America?  Congressman Wilson helped point out the hypocrisy of the Obama Administration’s push, as Democrats continue to continue to spin and mislead the public. We need to raise money to correct this stifling of open and honest debate by those dastardly Democrats, and now those same Democrats are actually, scandalously, trying to raise more money off of our fundraising that was pointing this out!

“We’ll see your two lies, and raise you one hypocrisy, a misrepresentation, and two government social workers thrown in.”

But the Democrats should then re-raise, with an ad that goes something like this:

Can you believe those absolutely classless, ”classy” Republicans, America!!  First they tried to raise money off of Joe Wilson’s outrageous attack upon the President, and did so by trying to project their own constant dissembling on the health care bill onto us, just like they always do!  Then, when we pointed this out – to raise funds to show these vicious lie — they used this against us to fund raise some more; by re-spinning those same lies! (And calling us “dastardly.”  America, make them apologize).  Even signed once again by “Classy” Joe Wilson.  Help us raise money now to defeat these lies about the truth we were telling about the lies they were telling about the truth!!!!

Of course the Republican camp will then run another ad, which will say something like this:

Hey, would somebody simply explain to the American people what this is all about so that we Republicans can stop lying so easily about it and actually have an informed discussion over the issue and see what we can do about these outrageously spiraling taxpayer funded medicare and medicaid expenses, which eat up more government funds than anything save perhaps national defense?

Yeah, Right.