Controlling The Narrative

I'll say this now.

Obama and the Democrats are losing the health care debate badly. Why?

There is no health care debate right now. All that matters is the volume of the yelling, and what crazy, outrageous things the teabaggers/birthers/healthers are doing next. The more outrageous the story, the more the anti-health care forces win. And as long as the Village assures that's the case, it's all a foregone conclusion.

CNBC approached Tea Party activists, looking for angry protest events that would make good television, according to a leaked email from a Tea Party discussion group. And one Tea Bagger responded by flagging an upcoming event that, he said, "should be a riot ... literally."

Yesterday, Tea Party Patriots national coordinator Jenny Beth Martin sent an email, obtained by TPMmuckraker, to a Tea Party google group. Martin told the group: "We have a media request for an event this week that will have lots of energy and lots of anger. This is for CNBC."

She then asked: "So, where are the big events this week and where can TPP best be represented on the news?"

Whether or not millions of Americans can even afford to get sick is irrelevant to our media. All that matters to them is "good television" and ratings, seeing if they can be the next darling of the news cycle, seeing if they can get the next batch of hot footage for the networks as they cover the growing lunacy and encourage more of it.

Martin tells TPMmuckraker that she did not forward the Scott event -- or, in fact, any event -- on to CNBC as a candidate for coverage. She stressed that her group "does not endorse anything that incites violence of any kind," adding that the email list is un-moderated. "I can't moderate every single comment," she said.

Asked whether CNBC had specifically told her they were looking for an event with "lots of energy and lots of anger," Martin replied: "That was the impression that I received from them." She declined to elaborate.

CNBC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Everyone in the Village wants to get that seminal moment that defines the complete and total lack of civility that this has become. They can smell it coming, and they're doing what they can to fan the flames just to see if they can catch that spark that ignites the country into a much greater conflict.

And as long as the anti-health care forces can continue to have lunatics doing stupid human tricks anywhere near a waiting Village reporter with a camera, the health care debate continues to die a slow, painful death. Millions more Americans will continue to lose their health care before the next election, some of them will be the same people so eagerly crying out against the tyranny of having the government help provide it. "After all, anyone who doesn't have health insurance is either lazy, poor, sick, or some combination of the three. Why should we have to pay to help them? That's tyranny!"

If they make it to 65, they can get Medicare, right?

The practical upshot is that Obama is being fully played. The lunatics are promising a huge story when Obama Derangement Syndrome spills over into violence. That's all that matters this summer. There's no intention of getting to the actual policy debate.

And without that, the push for reform is all but dead. At this point all the anti-health care forces have to do is start attacking the budget reconciliation process as the ultimate tyranny, and Obama's done. It'll be time to sit back and wait until the Clintonian triangulation begins, in which case we'll be right back to the natural state of Washington: Democrats giving the Republicans everything they want, or else the GOP cries "fascism!" and the Village pimpslaps the Dems into line.

Jesus hell, this is depressing.

[UPDATE 3:32 PM] Why waste time debating health care when you can just make shit up about how our Black Seekrit Muslim Usurper Dictator is going to lock you up for being crazy enough to oppose him?

It's your basic Sun Tzu/Caesar/Machiavelli/Army Counter-Terrorism Manual stuff here: If side A has rules and follows them and side B is fully of batshit crazy people willing to go to any extreme to win, then side B wins the war every damn time.