By Dave Andrusko

Such is the headline in a piece written by Jonathan Weisman that appears in today's Wall Street Journal. In six words it offers insight into a couple of the very most important components of the ongoing battle over health care restructuring.

For instance, we learn quickly that what Weisman calls "a center-left coalition of advocacy groups, union leaders and health-care experts" put its collective heads together to "try to change the language of the health-care debate," beginning four years ago. It's called the "Herndon Alliance, "and "it is named after the northern Virginia suburb where proponents first met, included the AARP, Service Employees International Union, the American Cancer Society and the liberal health-policy group Families USA, among others."

How did they prepare themselves for "the rhetorical battle over health care"? Glad you asked. "The forces backing President Barack Obama's overhaul have spent years polling and using focus groups to find the precise language that would win over voters -- an effort that doesn't at the moment appear to be working," Weisman writes.

Howard Kurtz, Washington Post

Okay, so far, so good. They pooled their expertise, tested language to see which increases support/minimizes opposition and are taking credit for Obama's retooled rhetoric. (An Obama Administration spokesman admitted they had met with the group, but "declined to comment on whether the research had affected Mr. Obama's own language in discussing health care.")

That's all fine. You can easily understand why Obama would think twice about using the word "government," as in government-controlled health care. What isn't cricket is what follows, particularly in the video you find on the web where Weisman yammers and opines.

The gist of his critique (disguised as a "Wall Street Journal Analysis") is two-fold. He says the Herndon Alliance is "getting some negative attention" because "frankly the other side is using very emotional language."

After all, the Alliance is pretty much responsible, Weisman says, for taking the "sweep out of health care reform" and for trying to get Obama to use "quieter language." And as Weisman says at the end of the video, "I think President Obama is rethinking whether he should stick with the Herndon Alliance's more clinical approach or find a more emotional appeal in September when this war really heats up."

So, let me get this straight. Why are Obama and his allies not prevailing? It can't be because the proposals coming out of the House and the Senate are deeply flawed and virtually unintelligible even to those who follow the debate closely. It can't be because people are smart enough to realize that you don't expand something by a quantum amount and then say it'll actually reduce costs.

And surely it can't be because the pro-abortionists have dug in their heels, and are determined that this is their moment to open the sluice gates, pour money into the abortion industry, and make it virtually impossible for anyone to avoid paying for abortion, directly or indirectly.

No, the answer is because (as mentioned above) "the other side is using very emotional language." Indeed civilization (a.k.a. blindly accepting what we hear from the usual sources) is being tested.

"The question is, can such irrational [!] language be countered by rational language? Can emotion be countered by a more clinical approach to something as dramatic and [unclear word] and complex as what president Obama is trying to do with our health care plan?"

When I read that nonsense I thought of a column in yesterday's Washington Post. It had the same ring--it's only emotion that has turned the debate around--in spite of best efforts of the media to counter the absurdity of those who oppose the plans coming out of the White House and Congress.

"Mainstream journalists" had actually done a pretty good job debunking "ludicrous claim[s]," wrote the Post's Howard Kurtz, although the public is still deeply skeptical. "Perhaps journalists are no more trusted than politicians these days, or many folks never saw the knockdown stories." In either case, "this was a stunning illustration of the traditional media's impotence."

Really? Maybe it's a "stunning illustration" of something else--a growing movement of people who simply do not believe anything the usual media bigwigs say.

Combine that with the maddeningly patronizing attitude that permeates so much media coverage--"we explain/debunk everything so well, and you dolts still believe there is a looming financial Armageddon and a bias for death in the bills that are emerging"--and it's not difficult to understand why a larger and larger segment of the American public has no time for the Washington Post, or the New York Times, or the three big networks, or any of the media gaggle that distributes the same talking points and expects us to believe they have all reached the same conclusion independently.

Please!

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