This is what is being used here and across the blogosphere to now skewer the President:
Mika Brzezinski: I won’t name names, but I heard it from several people in the Administration: Howard Dean, very not pleased, with Dr. Dean speaking out about health care reform and this plan.
Savannah Guthrie: Yeah, very irritated. Yes, isn’t it fascinating they don’t seem to be too angry at Lieberman, they’re reserving their fervor for Howard Dean, but actually, one senior official who I talked to this morning paid the highest insult which was to call him irrelevant to the entire health care debate. You know he kind of had his moment in the sun in the last week when this Medicare expansion looked like it was going to be the thing that broke the logjam between the progressives in the party and the moderates, but, of course, because of Lieberman, the Medicare expansion is gone, and now Dean is having what one official called "a tantrum."
Mika Brzezinski saying I won’t name names????
And according to Savannah Guthrie: One senior official who I talked to this morning paid the highest insult which was to call him irrelevant to the entire health care debate.
"One senior official"???
Who is this senior official and why do we care what he has to say? Did we elect him??
This is being spread as the White House lashing out at Howard Dean, and let it be clear, by White House, many are taking this to mean Barack Obama lashing out at Howard Dean.
The diary, here, currently on the recommend list, contrasts a statement by Lieberman, who spoke of the President’s kind words toward him.
Obama thanked Lieberman privately for his statement issued earlier Tuesday pledging support for the bill as long as the Medicare expansion and public option were eliminated from the bill, Lieberman said.
By illustrating this reported contrasting action by Obama, after all this is all second hand, the impression is made that Obama himself is lashing out at Howard Dean and not at Lieberman. How amazing is that? If there is any doubt about the success of this impression, take a gander at the comments in the referred diary, which are almost all angry at the President.
Now, it is reasonable to assume that the administration would not be happy that anyone is advocating killing this bill. After all, they have fought against the Republicans for attempting to do just so, since the beginning of this entire enterprise.
Still, if there is anything we know of this President, it is that he does not lash out at individuals. It is simply not his style, even if he disagrees with them. We have seen evidence of this, of his willingness to hear all sides of an issue even to the point of frustration. For attacks to be leveled against this man, because of an item started by Mika Brzezinski, who refused to name names, it is sad, unfair, and tells me that we are hurling over a cliff.