And if McCain gets elected, 8 years from now we'll be talking about how America was once a superpower and how most Americans were able to live a middle class existence.

Over in Afghanistan they'll be talking about how Hitler and Japan or Russia couldn't defeat America, but how Bin Laden with the connivance of Republicans, especially Bin Bush, Bin McCain and Bin Palin were able to push America into third world status.

i've decided my goal in life is to live long enough to STOP hearing the republicans quote their great god reagan as if his words came from the sermon on the mount.

don't know if that's possible, tho.

Palin's real mentor?:
"I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me." Stuart Smalley

Great catch! Both you and Mr. Chait. I hope the Obama campaign pounds them with this.

Democrats have been lousy on the issue of health coverage. When the Republicans spew out their bumper-sticker argument that "Americans don't want a government bureaucrat coming between them and their doctor", Democrats respond with some sort of wonky nonsense.

What if they used this:
The choice isn't whether a government bureaucrat gets in the middle of discussions between a family and Marcus Welby over medical care. The choice is between a corporate bean counter deciding what care you can get and a government bureaucrat.

The corporate bean counter decides whether a medical procedure is covered using rules written by corporate executives, whose bonuses and stock options increase every time a claim is denied. A government bureaucrat has to answer to politicians who have to face re-election.

back in the day, when men and women were free."

Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.

"It was Ronald Reagan who said that freedom is always just one generation away from extinction. We don't pass it to our children in the bloodstream"

She really put me off my dinner when she said that.

@ Doggod Thanks- My coffee came out my nose. I just conjure up a mental image of her in front of the mirror.

Oooh yeah, that big, scary, freedom-snatching Medicare monster. Amazing how every other advanced economy in the world has managed, for decades now, to provide a far greater degree of universal healthcare than scary old US Medicare, and yet we haven't succumbed to the intrusive tyrannies Reagan implied. We just have comprehensive, equitable healthcare and pharmaceuticals at vastly lower costs per capita, as % of GNP, and at price everyone, even the sickest and poorest among us, can afford. Soil-yourself-scary stuff.

Just imagine how AWFUL it would be if Big Insurance & Big Pharma started making less money out of all that delightful healthcare freedom Americans currently enjoy! The mind positively boggles...Thankfully y'all have Yukon Barbie to subliminally remind you where them dark dangers lurk...

In fact, Reagan was not warning about a general lack of vigilance about freedom, he was warning what would happen if Medicare was enacted.

Oh, good Ford, that's funny.

Oops. The McCain aides probably should have checked that one a little closer before handing Palin the script.

Are you suggesting that Palin just parroted words someone else put in her mouth? Sexist! [/snark]

I had the EXACT same response! IIRC, it was a record he did in the 60's, warning about how we'd have lost the Cold War if we passed Medicare.

Republicans are dolts.

Don't underestimate the desire of some Republicans to ensure our "freedom" from Medicare sooner or later! They tried with Social Security....

Good point. Some good and decent journalist should follow up on that point at Governor Palin's next press conference.

Reagan was not warning about a general lack of vigilance about freedom, he was warning what would happen if Medicare was enacted.
=====

What makes you think Palin's stage managers and writers didn't know that? Right-wingers HATE Medicare. It makes it possible for older non-millionaires to live awhile longer instead of dying painfully from the first serious illness that comes along, or going home with the diagnosis and hanging themselves on their front porches, as they used to do before the mournful extinction of freedom.

When will we hear the Democratic ad with the entire context of Reagan's foolishness.

Ronald Reagan was a mediocre president, a man full of bad ideas who was surrounded mostly by pragmatic professionals who didn't mind the rhetoric, but mostly knew how to make government work properly despite that rhetoric. Luckily for us, he wasn't surrounded by George W Bush's hacks or he would have started a war with the USSR.

Sarah Palin used the expression "back in the day"?

Word up, homegirl.

How long is "a generation?"

Seems like since 9/11 freedom of the press is under fire, 4th Amendment is shot, cruel and unusual punishment (waterboarding), no problem...

Equal protection... as long as pay scales aren't involved and you're straight, sure... I suppose that one is still intact.

Religion... so far so good, 10 commandments not in the courthouse and prayers to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (and yours too, you just don't realize it yet) not in our schools....

As John McCain would say... clearly we're making "significant progress" on this freedom problem.
We should be able to wrap things up within that generation Reagan promised.

Keep it up America!
Low low taxes, and the government will tell you what to do with your untouched, but low-wage paychecks.

Missed references aside, I get the sense that the conservative movement buys into the idea that if we are not fighting militarily every generation to "safeguard our freedoms" we are somehow going to lose those freedoms. There is actually no reason to think that the freedoms which we enjoy in this country have been preserved in any way by any U.S. military action since the end of WWII.
The biggest threats to our freedoms have come from the McCarthy-ites in the '50s, the "love it or leave it" crowd, along with the Nixon administration in the '70s, and the current administration. This notion that we have to aggressively attack adversaries with our military goes hand in hand with the conservative movement's misunderstanding of the commander-in-chief role of the POTUS. They think that means that the POTUS's primary job is being the top general of the military ... directing all our wars so that we can preserve our freedoms. A more accurate understanding of the constitutional commander-in-chief role is that it is not a directorial role, nor a hands-on involvement role, but rather a role of accountability to the public.

I'd also like to point out that Palin incorrectly attributed the "shining city on a hill" quote to Ronald Reagan. Although Reagan was fond of that line, he was quoting John Winthrop, the first governor of Massachusetts.