Liberals are losing the health care debate because they are just too darn nice

That's Dan Neil's take.

There are times when I want to quit being a progressive liberal, tear up my ACLU membership card and surrender my implanted mind-control chip through which I receive marching orders from Hugo Chavez. No matter the righteousness of the cause, liberal progressives cannot seem to get on top of any public policy debate, cannot seem to win any war of words -- which is just weird because you have to assume there are many more English majors among liberals.

While opinions on health-care reform break sharply along partisan lines, with most Democrats in favor and most Republicans opposed, independent voters strongly oppose the health-care reform measures pending in Congress by a whopping 70 percent to 27 percent, according to a recent Pew Research poll. How could the left possibly be losing the debate on health-care reform when its opponent is the roundly loathed health insurance industry -- an ongoing criminal syndicate, in my view, that demands protection money from sick people?

It's because the insurance industry's demagoguery is better and smarter than the reformists' demagoguery. This is a gunfight to which the reform agenda has brought a dull spoon.

The reform message is so jellied with politesse, so measured, so anti-inflammatory it might as well be made out of Advil.

He recommends that liberals and progressives "get down and dirty".

So when the Speaker infers that protesters are Nazis, when principled opposition is deemed un-American, when the media derisively calls protests "Astroturf", when the White House keeps a list of those who make "fishy" statements about what's in the plan and when protesters get roughed-up by union goons -- just remember that they are being nice.

In fairness, he probably wasn't able to see these things. The view is pretty limited when your head is that far up your ass.