Nashville News Blog

The latest public skewering of Phil Bredesen as potential HHS Secretary comes in a scathing essay today by Georgetown University's Madison Powers, who writes a regular column at CQ Politics. Not long ago Bredesen lashed out at his critics by observing that "advocacy groups don't matter nearly as much as the pharmaceutical groups, the hospitals, the doctors' groups." Powers' comeback:

"His defensive remarks are revealing. He is willing to entertain the ideas of advocacy groups who represent the interests of constituencies for whom he has respect, but the ideas of those who speak for ordinary citizens of modest means are dismissed as unimportant....Those who have followed the Tennessee saga through legislative hearings and voluminous court records know that his response to criticism is vintage Bredesen behavior. Over the years, first as mayor of Nashville and then as governor, a clear and consistent picture emerged of a political figure who is arrogant, autocratic, and seemingly allergic to legislative accountability. His characteristically belligerent attitude to those who disagree with him, along with his misplaced confidence in the lessons from his own experience in the commercial health care sector, make him a singularly unsuited candidate for the job."

Powers writes that Bredesen "wants to do to the nation's already inadequate system of private health insurance what he imposed on the participants in Tennessee's public program." Is the White House listening? If he must go to DC, Phil is perhaps a better fit at Commerce, and his confirmation hearing for that gig would spill a lot less blood in the committee room.