It’s not a household name, but Frank Luntz is the brilliant deceiver of the GOP who in 2002 taught the Bush Administration to say that drilling for oil is just "exploration" and global warming is just
"climate change." Now comes his new treatise on how the GOP can kill health reform with perfect messaging. But the most striking statement is this: "We suggest ratcheting up the rhetoric against insurance companies to almost the same degree as you do against Washington bureaucracy." Even the guy who made global warming sound tame can’t find one good thing to say about insurance companies.

Luntz says Republicans must have an alternative of their own. But what might that be? So far it’s nothing more than more of the same. It’ll just be described in happier words.

So maybe it’s all an inside-out stunt by Luntz, who repeatedly makes it clear that there really is a crisis and Republicans have to do more than criticize solutions. After all, Luntz offered his services on health care messaging to California reform advocates a couple of years ago. (Amusing video linked here)

Progressives are probably right to fear Luntz, since he’s an expert in crafting messages based on personal fear. And the GOP is wasting no time putting them into practice–especially the more vapid stuff about "protecting the patient-doctor relationship."

But I’m betting they’ll ice-skate in Hades before GOP Sen. Charles Grassley, the chief opponent of a "public option" to the for-profit insurance industry, stands up to decry the waste, the patient abuses and the excessive profit of the health insurance industry. What’s too bad is that we’d probably wait just as long for the same speech from the chief Democratic architect of health reform, Sen. Max Baucus.

Hmm. In a twisted way, maybe Luntz is telling Republicans they can kill reform just by admitting how bad the insurance companies are, while leading Democrats sit in committee hearings fawning over the industry’s chief lobbyist, Karen Ignani.