Helping Those that Destroyed Reform

Reason #34828 why you should never give money to the DNC: (via Americablog)

Last month, Ben Nelson did a TV ad defending his vote on health care. He talks straight to the camera and disses those "who wanted a government takeover." That sounds like an attack on people who supported the public option, because that's as close as Congress got to a "government takeover." You'll recall that Nelson helped kill the public option in the Senate and the Medicare buy-in (after he'd already agreed to it), insisted on the inclusion of harsh anti-abortion language, and then threatened to join the Republicans in filibustering the conference report on the deal he already cut. That Ben Nelson.

Turns out, though, that it's not a Ben Nelson campaign ad. It's hard to read the disclaimer, but the ad was paid for by the Nebraska Democratic Party. It's one of a series of ad touting Nelson's "courageous" effort to bring down real health care reform. More of the ads can be seen here and here.

So, one wonders, where did the Nebraska Democratic Party get the money to pay for these TV ads?

Today, it looks like we got the answer: the Democratic National Committee. According to the Nebraska Democratic Committee's latest FEC report, it received a contribution of $459,760.00 from the DNC.

And here is example 1A that should be studied when the Democrats get slaughtered next November.

Yes the Senate is structurally problematic and sucks. Yes some Senators represent states far more conservative than others.

But none of those facts justifies Ben Nelson's actions during the health care debate. He is an attention whore owned by the insurance industry. Staying in the news and killing any type of real reform were his only goals throughout the process.

Until the Democratic party stops rewarding it's worst members, it's hard them moving too far in the right direction.