Reading: Somerby: Be careful what you wish for

Bob Somerby has spent the last couple of weeks demonstrating that an important reason that those congressional and White House Democrats who actually want meaningful health care reform are getting their asses handed to them, again and again, by one egregious Republican lie after another, is that Democrats have no story, while Republicans have two:

1. Big government can't do anything right.

2. Liberal elites think they're smarter than you.

The first is chiefly Ronald Reagan's gift to America. The second one goes much farther back. They appear in a thousand faces. They're all-purpose, one-size-fits-all. And after decades of prepping American audiences to plug in those premises themselves at the right moment, Republicans no longer need facts to carry the day, or the truth, or thought-out policies, or any of that folderol that liberal Democrats are so fond of. They have only to nudge their audiences in the right direction--and that includes the political media, as well as the grass roots--and the audiences will do the rest.

As a result, Democrats in Congress and in the White House regularly lose rhetorical contests that many liberals (i.e., the liberal elites who think they're smarter than you) thought should have been easy tap-ins.

And although Democrats apparently haven't figured out why this is happening, they've obviously noticed the trend, and it makes them . . . well, let's be generous and call them skittish (Somerby's emphasis):

In this morning’s New York Times, a letter writer imagines sweet justice. But does he understand the broken discourse of the past twenty years?

LETTER TO THE NEW YORK TIMES (9/11/09): It would have been audacious but, nevertheless, a teaching moment had President Obama called Representative Joe Wilson, who heckled him during his address to Congress, to the well, like a teacher calling an errant child to the front of the class, asked him his name, asked him what state he came from, asked him to repeat his remark, asked him to explain why he called him a liar, straightened him out, then told him to sit down.

LETTER TO THE NEW YORK TIMES (9/11/09): It would have been audacious but, nevertheless, a teaching moment had President Obama called Representative Joe Wilson, who heckled him during his address to Congress, to the well, like a teacher calling an errant child to the front of the class, asked him his name, asked him what state he came from, asked him to repeat his remark, asked him to explain why he called him a liar, straightened him out, then told him to sit down.

R— R—
New York, Sept. 10, 2009

Careful, Rosenthal! the analysts cried. Be careful what you wish for! As the Times explains in today’s editorial, “Illegal immigration is an all-purpose policy explosive”—a dangerous place to venture. The people who sold the nation “death panels” are now selling the claim that Joe Wilson was rude, but correct on the merits. Democrats are backing away from the good solid spanking the writer imagines because they know danger lurks there.

More on the no story/two story theme next week (I hope). But for now this Somerby's post (scroll down to "Special Report: Enabling the (un)real McCoys!") is going on the Readings list in the sidebar.