You Lie!

You're going to be shocked -- shocked! -- that Mickey approved of Joe Wilson's heckling, and you're going to be dazzled -- dazzled! -- at the reason why.

While an ordinary person might have heard the shout as a perfect example of the kind of vaguely defined outrage available at your local teabagger/town hall protest ("[Obama] [something bad]!") except in second-person instead of third-, Mickey understands that Joe Wilson's nuanced "dissent" was intended to address "whether there is any verification mechanism that will actually stop illegals from getting coverage, whatever the law says."

(Apparently, the original quote was supposed to be "You lie about whether we have appropriate verification mechanisms to stop some migrant worker from getting his fracture set!" Must have been shortened for impact.)

This is of a piece, of course, as Mickey also thought that the random yahoos screaming at town halls were attempting to engage in thoughtful dialogue with the Peter Singers of the world over the relative value of life and our health care system's priorities, and will share with you why this is all Peter Orszag's fault.

I wonder, is there a word for the belief that the great and good American people (except for those nasty Democrats!) deep down share -- or would share -- your precise beliefs but are simply incapable of articulating it as well as you can, and therefore you should be allowed to speak in their stead?

Paternalitism?

Or just "Mickey Kaus"?