Pelosi and Senate Democrats blame insurance companies and media

As the August recess deadline passes for voting on the government takeover of health care insurance, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democrats unleash a barrage of finger-pointing.

It is often difficult for politicians to look in the mirror - as what is commonly found there is an unattractive combination of bloated promises and the inevitable sag of what has not been delivered. Reflections are phantoms cloaked in truth, and they serve to be avoided. The barrage of finger-pointing that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her Democratic colleagues in the Senate unleashed on Thursday underscores a notable avoidance of the reality that the collapse in agreement among Democrats in both chambers of Congress set in motion. Pelosi turned her focus on the insurance sector, portraying insurance companies as the driving force behind the Democrats failure to meet President Obama's voting deadline. "It's almost immoral what they are doing," Pelosi said to reporters, according to Reuters. "Of course they've been immoral all along in how they have treated the people that they insure," she said, adding, "They are the villains. They have been part of the problem in a major way. They are doing everything in their power to stop a public option from happening." Senate Democrats chose an entirely different target to blame. "Senate Democratic leaders on Thursday blamed Capitol Hill media for setting an August deadline for health reform and Republicans for blocking the bill's progress," [i]The Hill[/i] reported on Thursday. According to Senate Democrats, President Obama did not set a deadline. The media did it. “That is a deadline that you created,” Reid told a group of about 75 reporters, according to The Hill. “It’s not like we don’t have a product. Significant progress has been made … The mere fact that this wasn't done by last Friday or by five o’clock doesn't mean we’re not going to get a quality product."