The Set-Up

I really think Klein set up Armey, just so he could look good on Swampland. They're playing off of each other like Superman and Lex Luthor, or more accurately, Ricky and Lucy:

"Dick: Seems to me, reading you this week, that although you've left public office, you're still infected with political blather, Frank Luntz-style. For example, the word "Ownership." That tested really well in focus groups, but what does it mean? The 47 million people who don't have health insurance--the vast majority of them hardworking folks who could use some help--don't "own" an insurance policy. But you're even opposed to plans like Romney's (which came out of the Heritage Foundation) which give the working poor the means to choose among private health plans and "own" one. It's socialism, you say.
But your definition of socialism...

"Socialized medicine can take the form of government taking your money and then spending it on insurance. Socialized medicine can take the form of a requirement from government for you to spend money on health insurance. Either way, it is the government making the decision about your money, no matter whether you call it Medicare, Medicaid, or an individual mandate....is a smear, the sort of language used in 20-second attack ads, not a definition. I seem to remember socialism defined as state ownership of the means of production. What you're all het-up about is state regulation--not ownership--of an untrammeled, semi-monopolistic free market. How far do you go, Dick? I mean, paying taxes is a state intervention, too. A military draft is a state intervention--would you rule that out, too, if we faced another existential threat like World War II?"

Sweet, although, in terms of blogger wars, it's still not as good as Althouse vs. Jessica Valenti's breasts.