The Administration's Loyal Press

The White House wants to paint opposition to health care reform as outside the mainstream of political life, and the media is happy to play along.

This morning Ann Curry did her best to delegitimize opposition to the Democrats' health care reform.  John McCain held his own, but the GOP is going to need to do better.

The mainstream press is all on the same page. It is not enough to gloat over Republicans' crushing weekend defeat. No. Democrats need to make opposition to their health care takeover fundamentally un-American.

And the press jumped.

We have seen this play before. Church burnings. The militia movement. And now a crazed conservative movement bent on violence against the advocates of Obamacare.

This morning Curry tried to write "targeted districts" and "battleground states" out of our political lexicon because we live in "dangerous times."

McCain acquitted himself well, gently mocking Curry and pushing back.

But we need more than that. The mainstream press needs a poke in the eye. Pols need to pull the curtain away and publicly expose these concerned interlocutors. This meme of a violent right wing is entirely driven by a White House and political strategists who believe they need to do more than enact law to win the fight over health care. They need to paint opposition to health care reform as fully outside the mainstream of political life.

As Ann Curry and countless media outlets have shown since this weekend, a compliant press is not ashamed to midwife this process.

They should be.  And they would be if Republicans responded to these loaded queries by asking why journalists are reading Robert Gibbs' talking points verbatim on the morning news.

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