The right knows that it's not enough to attack Obamacare, or complain about the problems with Healthcare.gov -- you have to give people a villain, in this case, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. This is a specifically Alinskyite approach -- which makes sense because the only people in modern political life who obsess over Ol' Saul's Rules for Radicals are right-wingers.
I wanted to find the text of Alinsky's 12th and final Rule, and where did I find it? At a site called "Best of Beck: Glenn Beck Quotes, Research, References, Transcripts, Audio, Videos."
RULE 12: "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it." Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions. (This is cruel, but very effective. Direct, personalized criticism and ridicule works.)Secretary Sebelius, for now, this is your life.
The right-wing corollary to Alinsky Rule #12 is "Whenever possible, pick a target who's non-white, a woman, or both." Think about it: Van Jones. Shirley Sherrod. Lois Lerner. Eric Holder. Susan Rice and Hillary Clinton (on Benghazi). Valerie Jarrett (on everything). There are scapegoats who don't fall into these categories, inside and outside the administration -- George Soros, Cass Sunstein, Mike Bloomberg on guns, Chuck Schumer -- all Jews -- as well as Harry Reid (though he takes a backseat to the truly despised Nancy Pelosi on the right-wing hate-o-meter). But the ideal target is still someone who's not a white Christian male. So Sebelius is pretty close to ideal.
