Weekly Standard commentary.
Despite copious coverage this morning, a top link on Drudge, and the Politico dubbing it a "viral campaign," Douglass' dreary video is up to only about 350 views. The original attack video is logging more than 400,000.
As the White House should have learned by now, picking a fight with a guy like Drudge can be counterproductive, just like picking a fight with say, Rush Limbaugh. Today, Drudge responds with the uncut version of this 2003 video of Obama advocating single-payer, government-controlled health care, but warning that it will be a gradual process:
Phil Klein examines the charge that Obama was taken out of context in-depth, here. Bottom line:
Taken together, I think this highlights Democratic double-talk on health care. When speaking to liberal audiences who want a single-payer system, Democrats will argue to them that offering a government-run plan within a government-run exchange is the politically pragmatic way of getting to a single-payer system over time. But when addressing the general public, they talk about the government plan merely as something that will provide people with “choice” and foster “competition.” They don’t get to have it both ways.