Greg Sargent sheds light on Rahm Emanuel's meeting with progressive groups:
Sources at the meeting tell me that Emanuel really teed off on the Dem-versus-Dem attacks, calling them "f–king stupid." This was a direct attack on some of the attendees in the room, who are running ads against Dems right now.
Tellingly, Rahm raised the specter of a loss on health care, sources at the meeting say — which suggests that the White House may be less certain about victory than officials allow publicly.
"He started out with, `We’re 13 and 0 going into health care,’" one source at the meeting said, meaning that Rahm was touting the White House’s string of pre-health care legislative victories.
Uh:
- So a Democrat attacks a fellow Democrat, explaining that it's "f-king stupid" for Democrats to attack Democrats?
- Nobody cares what Rahm Emanuel's legislative scorecard says. The only thing that matters is getting good legislation passed. 14-0 won't mean a thing if it's the result of compromising away the most important elements of health care reform.
- The public overwhelmingly supports a Medicare-style public option within a strong health insurance exchange. Abandoning that wouldn't just be bad policy, it would be "f-king stupid" politics.
Rahm's got a tough job, and who knows what game he's playing. But if he doesn't understand that the administration's political base is already fed up with having compromised too much in the health care bill and isn't prepared to abandon meaningful reform for the sake of "victory," then he's about to discover what "f-king stupid" really means.
Be sure and check out blueintheface's excellent rant and the comments in reaction to Rahm's remark.