Legal Commentary

The JournOList Campaign Against Howard Dean and The Public Option

By Big Tent Democrat

Scarecrow writes about the JournOList campaign against Howard Dean and the public option:

Beltway reporter Ron Brownstein [. . .] tweet[ed] a gratuitous insult about Howard Dean. [. . . ]But Brownstein isn't the only guy who got the memo to denigrate Dean because he has the temerity to keep fighting for the public option when the White House would rather Democrats stop demanding something the White House is willing to give up. The New Republic's Jonathan Chait piles on his own criticism of Dean's advocacy, but gets his history wrong. In an article with the lead in, How Liberal Despair is Hurting Health Care Reform, TNR's Jonathan Chait lectures us on the need to take what we've been offered now and build on it later [. . .] Chait's own gratuitous slam at Dean is targeted at the "liberal fixation" on the public plan [. . .]

I was curious to know why Dean didn't see the need for a government-sponsored insurance scheme in 2004, and sure enough, I found a possible source, a "health care wonk," for the notion Dean didn't have a public plan back then.

The "possible source" Scarecrow is talking about is, Ezra Klein, of JournOList fame. This will not come as a surprise to regular readers of Talk Left.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on September 22, 2009 (boomark / email).