Mickey claims:
If the White House had just ignored McCaughey's piece, it would probably have gone away. The damage was almost entirely self-inflicted.
He's right, I think. More evidence of Clinton's self-defeating paranoia. He's also right about this:
I specifically remember that the Clintonite rebuttal, like Ambitious Whippersnapper Ezra Klein's recent blog post, made a big deal of the following provision in the law:
"Nothing in this Act shall be construed as prohibiting the following: (1) An individual from purchasing any health care services."
But of course laws have sweeping introductory provisions like this all the time, only to undermine them in the fine print. Maybe the Clinton legislation didn't undermine this particular sweeping provision--but the Clinton spinners were fools to think anyone would be convinced by the sweeping provision itself. Or, rather, they were treating the press like fools, and the press doesn't appreciate that. ...