WSJ William McGurn 2009-08-18

Harry Reid's 'Evil' Moment
And Democrats wonder why their health plan isn't selling.
By WILLIAM MCGURN

Remember when polite society treated a politician's use of the word "evil" as a sign that the old boy was dangerously lacking upstairs?

We saw it in 1983, when Ronald Reagan famously used the word in a speech to describe the Soviet empire. What a rube! New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis spoke for the smart set when he wondered what Soviet leaders must think: "What confidence can they have in the restraint of an American leader with such an outlook?"

We saw it again in 2002, when George W. Bush characterized North Korea, Iran and Saddam Hussein's Iraq as an "axis of evil." Tom Daschle, a Democrat and then Senate majority leader, warned that "we've got to be very careful with rhetoric of that kind"; former President Jimmy Carter called it "overly simplistic and counterproductive"; and comedian Will Ferrell parodied it on Saturday Night Live. Soon the phrase became acceptable only in the ironic sense—as in the Chris Fair cookbook titled "Cuisines of the Axis of Evil and Other Irritating States: A Dinner Party Approach to International Relations."

With all this history, you would think Harry Reid (D., Nev.) had ample warning. Nevertheless, the Senate majority leader invoked the e-word himself last week at an energy conference in Las Vegas, where he accused those protesting President Barack Obama's health-care proposals of being "evil mongers." So proud was he of this contribution to the American political lexicon that he repeated it to a reporter the next day and noted the phrase was "an original."

And then . . . nothing. No thundering rebuke from the New York Times. No outburst from Mr. Carter. In fact, it's hard not to notice that the good and gracious people who instinctively recoil at words like "evil" or "un-American" (the preferred term of Mr. Reid's counterpart in the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi) have all been silent.

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McGurn
Associated Press

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nev., second from left, accompanied by Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont.
McGurn
McGurn

It would be easy to read something dark into Mr. Reid's characterization, and the yawn with which it has been greeted. In fact, what we have here is really the logical extension of the liberal assumption that they have a monopoly on brain power. In such a world, anyone who dissents, almost by definition, has to be stupid or evil or both.

It's a point of view Mr. Obama inadvertently encourages when he indulges in, say, the trope about Medicare that has become a staple of his town halls. The president tells the crowd he's received a letter from a woman upset with his plans for health care. "She said, 'I don't want government-run health care. I don't want you meddling in the private market place. And keep your hands off my Medicare.'"

Get it? The applause tells us the audience does: How dumb can this woman be?

It's much the same with White House spokesman Robert Gibbs. In his press briefings, Mr. Gibbs seems to suggest that all hard questions about health care are based on "misconceptions." Really?

Is the Congressional Budget Office's finding that the House plan would significantly raise health-care costs a "misconception"? Was it a "misconception" that the now-abandoned section covering end-of-life issues had an in-built conflict of interest between lowering costs and providing care for the elderly? And is it a "misconception" that Mr. Obama's ultimate goal is a single-payer system, when Americans can watch him on earlier videos saying as much?

Right now the entire Beltway—including the West Wing—seems obsessed with finding out what went wrong with the administration's sales pitch. No one appears to think the problem might be substance. Or that the vague answers and vitriolic rhetoric we get from Democrats such as Mr. Reid convey a sense that the plans they favor will not hold up under public scrutiny.

In fairness to the senator, perhaps history will one day vindicate his "evil monger" statement as a prophetic Gipper moment. If so, the legions of white-haired grandpas and grandmas now descending on our nation's town halls will be exposed to be as irredeemably evil as, say, Iran or the USSR. When asked if the senator has any second thoughts about calling American citizens evil, a spokesman emailed me to say that Mr. Reid's only regret is the "hate-filled rhetoric and signage" being used "to disrupt civil dialogue."

Plainly the Nevada Democrat is taking no chances. Instead of pressing the flesh at a real town hall this August, Mr. Reid has opted for a tele-town hall late next week. Aides say the format allows him to reach thousands more people. Of course, it also protects him from having to come face to face with all those evil mongers out there.

As with so many of his colleagues, Mr. Reid appears unable to connect his attitude to a questioning American citizenry to poll results showing increased sympathy for town-hall protestors, flagging public support for the health-care plans in Congress, and an erosion of Democratic credibility from the White House to Capitol Hill. To paraphrase Anthony Lewis, what confidence can the American people have in leaders with such an outlook?

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