New Article Proves it: Enlightenment Democrats Plagued by Dark Ages Republicans on Health Care

So you're a large, mostly respected American newspaper. You are tasked with producing a story about President Barack Obama taking his health care overhaul proposals to the mildly raucous town hall atmosphere of August 2009. What's the first quote in your article?

Here's how the L.A. Times answered that question, in paragraph four:

"I think it is very hard because [Democrats] don't have the message machine the Republicans do," said George Lakoff, a UC Berkeley linguistics professor who has advised some Democrats on how to sharpen their message. "The Democrats still believe in Enlightenment reason: If you just tell people the truth, they will come to the right conclusion."

Wow. That tops even this comically straight-sounding paragraph three from a recent New York Times piece:

There is no dispute, however, that most of the shouting and mocking is from opponents of those plans. Many of those opponents have been encouraged to attend by conservative commentators and Web sites.

All the news that fits!

Top link via The Corner's Mark Hemingway. Lakoff was deconstructed in previous episodes of Reason by Tim Cavanaugh and Jesse Walker.