Nyah, nyah, so there.

• Author: Henderson, Rick
• Position: Dismissing criticism of the Clinton health care reform package

The Democrats are trying to dismiss critics of Clinton's health-care plan with a few sharp words and a wave of the hand.

AS PRESIDENT CLINTON PREPARED TO make his televised health-care speech before Congress, the Republican National Committee prepared a list of "talking points" for its state party leaders. The five-page document pointed out specific portions of the Clinton plan (as it then existed) and cited criticisms of the proposal from mainstream press reports and from Democrats in Congress.

The morning of Clinton's speech, Democratic consultant Paul Begala mentioned the RNC's talking points on the Fox Morning News, Washington's second most popular morning show. Begala, the lesser-known partner of populist bomb thrower James Carville, called the document a "hate sheet, full of lies."

The Democrats' rhetorical campaign to pass ClintonCare hasn't gotten much more sophisticated than that. While you can expect the Democrats to challenge Republican attacks head on, Clintonites are also using Begala's infantile approach to savage the advocacy groups and legislators who offer other health-care reforms.

It's not unusual for political advocates to denigrate their opponents by trying to connect them with "unsavory" characters. Republicans have often tried to tie Democratic candidates to organized labor or Ted Kennedy. And in last fall's statewide races in Virginia, noncandidate Pat Robertson appeared in Democratic-sponsored attack ads as often as the actual Republican contenders.

But the campaign to reform health care transcends normal electioneering. In September, Hillary Rodham Clinton and two cabinet secretaries spent an unprecedented week on Capitol Hill testifying in defense of a bill (the president's health-care plan) that didn't exist. And details of this proposal changed so frequently that the plan's own backers didn't know what it would contain. On the October 21 MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, Democratic consultant Mandy Grunwald said Clinton could have chosen to support "an all-government solution" like the single-payer plan. "The president rejected that approach," she said. That same day, reports The Washington Post, "at the request of supporters of 'single-payer' health plans," the White House had altered its bill to "make it easier for a state to adopt a government-financed, Canadian-style medical system."

Clinton's plan would fundamentally restructure one-seventh of the American economy and completely alter the relationships between...