Here is a U. S. Senator, being discussed in the Huffington Post that I get in my email box. Piece is by Benen ---- it is the first page that comes up on my screen, and he is discussing a Republican senator, who is quoted:
"... Sen. Coburn: My 25 years as a practicing physician have shown me what happens when government attempts to practice medicine: Doctors respond to government coercion instead of patient cues... "
What is the sexily-named Sen. Coburn actually saying here?
He has been a physician for 25 years. He claims that the government "attempts to practice medicine." What does that mean? Why would the man say that? The next line helps to understand.
The man is concerned with "government coercion." He is talking about a coercive relation between government and doctors that, he claims, may exist somewhere.
The final point that I notice is that Coburn says that such relationship between government and doctors or such interference with the work of doctors causes a disruption to the relations between doctor and patient.
The type of progressive intellectual elites that write for Huff Post are always going to point out that these kinds of statments do not pertain to the the substance of the bill up for debate. That is entirely correct, and so the Huff Post's writers mainly stress that, as Benen puts it, the man was "absurd, wildly misleading, and ... detached from the substantive reality of the debate..."
But what I myself am interested in is the question of where this ideology that Coburn's statements reflect comes from and why it is important to these persons.
What Coburn is saying essentially comes down to a statement of ideological concerns. It is quite true that it is detached from the substance of the debate and, hence, boring --- to a writer from the Washington Monthly, but, not so if you happen to be turned on by Right-wing ideology.
But that ideology is important. It has a grip on these peoples' minds... [t.b.c. -I hope so!]
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