Escapegoats

Enjoy the town-hall drama while it lasts. It's been refreshing and encouraging to see folks holding their elected representatives accountable for their actions. Unfortunately, the politicians are only going to let their feet be held to the fire for so long. The little Napoleons have had just about all they can stand and they've started construction on their escape hatch.

The talking points were running full steam ahead on Monday and Tuesday as politicians supporting the health care reform agenda placed the "evil" insurance companies squarely in the cross-hairs;

• Nancy Pelosi has been handing her fellow house members talking point cards titled "health insurance reform to hold insurance companies accountable".
• Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill) warned other members of congress on Tuesday that "These health insurance companies and people like them are trying to load these town meetings for visual impact on television,"
• DNC spokesman Brad Woodhouse also chimed in on Tuesday that "These mobs are bussed in by well funded, highly organized groups run by Republican operatives and funded by the special interests who are desperately trying to stop the agenda for change the President was elected to bring to Washington,"
• At a joint Press conference on Monday with HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Senator Arlen Specter (D-PA) Sebelius drew jeers from the crowd when she claimed that the government plan would stop the system of rationing used by insurance companies.
• In Austin, Rep. Lloyd Dogget, D-TX gave ABC News this response for his angry town-hall attendees; "This notion of a grass-roots campaign is totally and completely phony," Doggett said in an interview with ABC News. "The Republican Party has coordinated this apparent outrage and stirred it up." Doggett said that he's happy for dialogue, but "there's no way you can change the legislation to satisfy any of these Republicans and their insurance allies."

And so it goes. The dialogue is evolving from "health care reform" to "health insurance reform" and the operatives are working hard to delegitimize the town hall protests by casting them as 'astro-turf' campaigns driven by corporate lobbyists. Of course, once the debate is settled that the insurance companies have hijacked the town-hall forum they might as well stop holding the meetings. After all, what else can they do?

At least we'll have you-tube to watch those old home movie re-runs of politicians being grilled by the people that the politicians didn't really think were watching;