THE ANSWER LIES IN THE WORLD OF WEYMOUTH! Weymouth was going to stage a soiree. To manufacture consent?

THE ANSWER LIES IN THE WORLD OF WEYMOUTH: By complete happenstance, Lally Weymouth’s first salon was going to be about health care.

Weymouth is the pearl-swirling, upper-crust grand-daughter of former Post owner Katherine Graham. (Translation: Must be seen to be believed.) She became the CEO of Washington Post Media last year. The salon would have been held right in her manse—and darlings, everyone would have been there! Everyone who’s anyone in derailing health care, that is:

KURTZ (7/3/09): Washington Post Publisher Katharine Weymouth yesterday canceled plans for a series of policy dinners at her home after learning that marketing fliers offered corporate underwriters access to Post journalists, Obama administration officials and members of Congress in exchange for payments as high as $250,000.

[...]

The fliers were approved by a top Post marketing executive, Charles Pelton, who said it was "a big mistake" on his part and that he had done so "without vetting it with the newsroom." He said that Kaiser Permanente had orally agreed to pay $25,000 to sponsor a July 21 health-care dinner at Weymouth's Northwest Washington home, and that Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.) had agreed to be a guest. Pelton, who serves as general manager for conferences and events, said he had invited two-dozen business executives, advocates and presidential health adviser Nancy-Ann DeParle. But a White House spokeswoman said no senior administration officials had agreed to attend, and an aide to DeParle said she had received no such invitation.

Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli said he was "appalled" by the plan. "It suggests that access to Washington Post journalists was available for purchase," Brauchli said. The proposal "promises we would suspend our usual skeptical questioning because it appears to offer, in exchange for sponsorships, the good name of The Washington Post."

The Post Co. fliers offered an "intimate and exclusive Washington Post Salon, an off-the-record dinner and discussion at the home of CEO and Publisher Katharine Weymouth."

Darlings! Right in her home—and off the record! You know this really counts!

Chances are, we’ll never really know how Pelton managed to bungle so badly. But let’s use this incident to understand the notion of “manufactured consent.”

Beyond that, let’s use this incident to understand your nation’s long, near-lunatic non-discussion of health care reform. The long, near-lunatic non-discussion to which career liberals have given consent.

Let’s make sure we understand who would have been at that dinner:

• Lally Weymouth, patrician publisher of the Post.
• Jim Cooper, the red-state Democrat (Tennessee) who played a large, leading role in defeating the Clinton health plan.
• Kaiser Permanente, one of the insurance giants which wants to undermine Obama’s health plan.
• Kaiser Permanente’s checkbook.
• Presumably, Ceci Connolly, the Post’s top reporter on health care.

Darlings, everyone would have been there! Everyone who’s anyone in undermining real health reform.

This has been going on for decades. What made this different is that it was so blatant that a health care lobbyist blew the whistle on it. Payola is one thing, shake downs are another.