Hope and Fail

Axelrod: Shouldn’t have called the left ‘insane’

Senior White House Adviser David Axelrod jumped right into some left-wing hot water when he said the far left’s position against the Senate’s health care reform package was “insane.”

He quickly moved to make amends. From The Nation:

The White House swiftly organized a blogger conference call on Thursday evening to rally support for health care reform, in a bid to stem fallout from progressives over recent compromises in the Senate. Senior Obama adviser David Axelrod devoted most of the time to taking questions, as bloggers from OpenLeft, Daily Kos, Crooks and Liars and Huffington Post pressed for answers on why recent concessions seemed so one-sided.

… “I’m not professionally qualified to judge insanity and maybe I should have used a different word,” Axelrod said, and he noted that “everybody’s a little on edge at this point” in the long legislative battle. He also stressed his respect for allies in the “progressive community,” but reiterated his view that it would be “wrongheaded” to squash all of health care reform at this point, which is “infinitely better” than the status quo.

Axelrod made the “insane” comment earlier on MSNBC’s Morning Joe while fielding questions from host Joe Scarborough and MSNBC’s Ed Schultz (the whole segment is worth watching):

“The notion that we would let our personal feelings about one person defeat a bill that would deliver to people who don’t have insurance the opportunity to get it a price they can afford – that would defeat a bill that has patient protections that we fought for for decades for people who do have insurance – to defeat a bill that will bend the curve on … on on this … ah … inexorable rise in health care costs is insane!”

Apparently the White House felt Axelrod had offended left-wing bloggers, thus his statement that he’s “not professionally qualified to judge insanity” and that he “should have used a different word.”

This all seems a bit silly. Who cares whether Axelrod calls his opposition “insane” or “crazy” or “wrongheaded?” Seems the White House is a bit too sensitive to the fragile feelings of OpenLeft, Daily Kos, Crooks and Liars and the Huffington Post.