You see, all this is President Obama's fault. Calling out the Republican teabaggers only forces them to protest that much harder. The folks who have legitimate concerns about the health care plan are being pushed aside and drowned out by the screaming lunatics. Ignoring them only allows them to swamp the democratic process, and calling them on it brings false indignation and mock outrage.Much of the Democratic response to critics has been inappropriate or unpresidential. Take the reaction to the town-hall meetings taking place across the country. Many people are worried about their health care and a few are responding in unacceptable ways. But Democrats are portraying the opposition as an "angry mob" using, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer wrote in a USA Today op-ed, "un-American" tactics. Mr. Obama's "Organizing for America," a political group founded by the president to mobilize supporters, dismisses critics as tools of "insurance companies . . . stirring up fear with false rumors," without presenting a shred of evidence to back up the charge.
The White House may actually welcome this process fight if it is more interested in the state of mind of 60 Democratic senators and 256 Democratic House members than in what the public at large is thinking. It seems to believe attacking critics will reassure nervous members of Congress. The sideshow also distracts attention from the substance of Mr. Obama's plans, which is what is really hurting him.
But to see Karl Rove do it, the man that ran the most partisan, political, media-spun White House in history, to chide the White House for being too political?
That's hysterical.
It's a game that can't be won.
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