At the end of separate interviews on Hardball, Chris Matthews gives Howard Dean a chance to respond to Mary Landrieu's statements and he comes at her hard for forcing everyone into private insurance by not allowing other choices in the bill. I'd call that a smack down for sure.
John Amato:
Sen. Landrieu drones on and on about her blind love and devotion to the insurance industry that has been a nightmare for many Americans. Why does she hate the idea that Americans deserve to have a choice about who they buy their health care from?
Dean: Mary, I'd like to know why you deny my people of the choice to sign up for an alternative? You are forcing us in to insurance companies. You took away our choice.
You would not let us choose another program. You forced us into the insurance industry and we don't want to be forced into the insurance industry and you took away our choice. That is wrong.
Landrieu: That is not true. You never had that choice to begin with.
Dean: The president campaigned on it, Mary...
Landrieu: No, he didn't. He did not campaign for a public option.
Dean: ...He most certainly did. He absolutely did, you are not accurate. He campaigned for a federal employee benefit with a public option. That's what he campaigned for.
Landrieu obviously never bothered to read the health care bill that President Obama ran on in the general election.
