A Villainous Talking Point

Use to be the truly bad guys were "evil doers," as popularized by Action Comics in the 1950's, and resuscitated by our own President Bush in the aftermath of 9/11. Now, the term is "villains," according to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi who just could not think of a better term to describe the insurance companies opposing National Healthcare. I await the political discourse of the future in this greatest of democracies, when "evil genius," "mad scientist" and perhaps even "churlish" will enter the fray.

At least George Bush's "evil doers" were actually, you know, evil. But in what sense are insurance companies "villains?" Even if you accept the Pelosi premise that anyone who opposes the Democrats' scramble for control of the economy is a very, very bad person, the last I heard, the insurance companies were onboard with National Healthcare.

Even so, the outing of insurance companies as the villains de jour was echoed by Charlie Rangel, full-time off-shore real estate entrepreneur and part-time Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, on Fox News with Chris Wallace this past Sunday. And then re-echoed by Senator Dick "I never met a child using school vouchers that I liked" Durbin, in this video (h/t Philip Klein in The American Spectator). Many other Democrats have similarly taken up the Pelosi line.

What does all this mean? Only that Democrats have no re-call procedure for Talking Points once they are launched. Pelosi's comments were intended to be a profound broad-side against opponents of National Healthcare, changing the terms of debate from the efficacy of government-run National Healthcare to the complicity of the insurance companies in gaming the current system to maximize their profits. Instead, as implemented by Ms. Pelosi, the Talking Point came off as a transparent and feeble attempt to distract the voters with a cartoonish demonization of insurance companies.

Obviously, this Talking Point polled well in the various focus groups at Democrat Headquarters. I would suggest, however, that the Mad Scientists of Democratic Party polling might consider expanding their pool of participants. The vast majority of voters just aren't buying this hackneyed demagoguery anymore.