DiFi To Progressives: Drop Dead

California Sen. Dianne Feinstein may be a Democrat, but she doesn't seem to give a damn about criticism from the Left on health care reform.

Senator Dianne Feinstein has already taken a hammering from Dems and health care reform advocates for casting doubts on the prospects of President Obama’s health care reform efforts. MoveOn, for instance, aired an ad against her in California, demanding she show some leadership and fight harder to get the president’s reform plan passed.

Now Feinstein has hit back at the criticism from the left in an article about lefty groups targeting Dems for waffling on key components of health care reform:

“I do not think this is helpful. It doesn’t move me one whit,” she said. “They are spending a lot of money on something that is not productive.”

That sharply dismissive tone won’t exactly smooth over tensions.

I'm with Atrios on this one: Progressives don't matter in Washington other than something to be mocked or derided, but even the craziest tinfoil batshit GOP theories get regular airplay and are treated with respect by the Village.

Part of that is the progressive movement's fault (MoveOn.org's disastrous "General Betrayus" attack comes to mind) but that's like maybe 5% of it. The other 95% is the Village, having spent 20+ years in a Washington where progressives simply didn't matter in the least. Now that they do, the Village hasn't gotten the memo. Just because the people swept the Democrats into power doesn't mean the rules of the Beltway have changed at all. Once the Village realized it had the power to make or break politicians, they decided they like the ones that sucked up the most. DiFi has been around since 1992, and her idealism was burned from her by the GOP revolution of 94.

It's still high school popularity to her. She knows how the game is played, and how the game is won. And to her, the conservatives still run the cool kids clique.