What Democrats should have done is propose a health care reform bill with very specific language in it guaranteeing that "the government shall enact and fund 'death panels' that will identify and put to death any American citizen who is deemed no longer biologically viable."

Then, the Blue Dogs could have saved the day by striking that part from the bill. And the rest of it, public option included, would have sailed right through.

I'm sorry I didn't bring this up earlier.

At what point will conservative rhetoric become so silly that even supposedly non-partisan media people can't sit through a diatribe with a straight face? Listening to conservatives long for the return of 19th century America has been quite surreal. Since conservatives are now freaking out about home nursing why aren't they freaking out about foster care?

With all due respect Steve, this has NOTHING to do with the functioning of our government, but everything to do with the failure of the Fourth Estate. It is that simple. When a lie cannot be called a lie and when liars are given MORE time in the media when they lie, the fault lies not with our governmental institutions, but with the "institution" charged with keeping those in government honest. Grassley lied. Arney lied. You know it and you point out that in a sane media, they would be banned from the airwaves after being exposed.

So, you cannot blame a dog from peeing on the floor if he has never been trained, and you cannot "balme" the GOP for their continued lying when they have never been trained. (This of course ignores the rank hypocrisy of Christainists lying their asses off to deny Caesar what is Caesar's.)

eric

i no longer anticipate anything decent coming out of this "season of health care reform"

-- i hereby declare that all i am doing now is observing a brilliant david lynch movie on the last years of the american democracy (or, republic, take yer pick).

by the time this is all over, we will all happily submit to our republican prison guards.

The gummint's a-gonna send people to your house to kill your granny and steal your kids to raise 'em up to be hom'sexuals!

Methinks that the Dem leaders do not really support real health care reform and are colluding with the Repubs to help the GOP bring up these things so the Dems can dilute the bills to the extent that they become meaningless.

I am not even sure that Obama is not in on this, given his passivity and backing down from all the significant reforms.

Time to give up on meaningful health care reform. The medical-insurance complex just has too much money and influence versus the uninsured or underinsured whom no one cares about.

Americans are too stupid to see what is really going on. And so we are stuck with the worst health care system in the developed world.

Not much I can do but pray my current job never gets outsourced - I have a pre-existing condition and will never be able to buy private insurance.

God I hate the way this country is run!

"The challenge in overcoming this is more than just overwhelming; it's also endless and unpredictable. Our political system just doesn't work the way it should."

It would work better if progressives would stop playing whack-a-mole with the proposals the wingnuts keep throwing, and decide instead to take a claw-hammer to the whole damned machine.

I have my Young Pioneers pin on.

If you really think the majority of Americans are buying into this crap I'd have to disagree. Yes the loons spout the absurd and the usual suspects do their part but the majority of Americans don't buy it nor do they feel it necessary to keep correcting these goobers.

Remember the McCain/Palin rallys where these wingers were screaming about ACORN and Muslims where 1500 would show up to spout this racists crap and people were saying see this is what "real" Americans stand for...then 75,000 + appeared at the St.Louis Arch to support Obama, then he won the election overwhelmingly? We are all just so sick of these so called "real Americans" minority who exclude the majority of Americans. We are not stupid and we know what these screamers stand for...and it's not "we the people".

I read that Chuck Norris piece and can only conclude that they imagine the word "voluntary" to be some sort of Marxist trick that can only mean "mandatory." Norris explicitly rejects that this could possibly be voluntary.

"The gummint's a-gonna send people to your house to kill your granny and steal your kids to raise 'em up to be hom'sexuals!"
Posted by: VKW on August 17, 2009 at 1:45 PM

Geez, Really? I wanna' work for the government! Who are they anyway? Oh, that's right. They are us...and Boehner, Grassley, Baucus, Conrad, McCain, Palin...oh not Palin no more. So all those claiming what the govmt gonna' do work for the govmint?

The response to these people should be: "Where on earth did you get that idea? That is wrong. Whoever told you that was either ignorant or lying. Why would anyone want to do something as stupid as you are suggesting? Let's talk about what is really in the bill"

Dems need to realize that the only response to this is to win. They have the votes in the House and the Senate. They need to realize that if they cater to the GOP they will be purged in the next election cycle. If they have any questions they can ask Tom Foley. Real public anger does not exist because of any proposal; rather it exists because the Dems refuse to exercise the power given to them by the electorate.

Contact Obama, your senators and Representative TODAY! Let them know that they have to start standing up to these kooks, and calling liars LIARS!

And this is only one more example of precisely why trying to get some genuine bi-partisan bill that would actually result in REAL health care reform is a complete waste of time. The Right isn't going to like ANYTHING that the Obama administration proposes, and the administration are fools if they continue to negotiate real reform away. Now it appears that the public health care program will also go the way of the dodo. I'm so pissed off I can barely see straight at this point!!

I've said this before--as soon as Congress reconvenes, the Democratic MAJORITY should call a bill that ceases all government health care services immediately. You want the guvmint outta yer dern health care? Done. Good-bye Meidcare, Medicaid, VA, etc.

Now go stand on yer two damn feet and don't get trod upon, assholes. See how fast the screamin' seniors realize that their guvmint health care wasn't so bad.

Apologies for those typos. Too angry to type well.

I no longer have any sympathy for the so-called "reformers" for if meaningful health care reform does not pass this year, they will have no one but themselves to blame for being "outsmarted" and out-hustled by a very small but highly vocal and unscrupulous far-right monirity. Yes, they lied and invented and got the MSM's attention, but look at what we have got: Dems control the White House and both houses of Congress, by wide majorities!! Hello! Am I missing something? It is time to junk the so-called "bipartisanship" (during the presidential campaign Paul Krugman had rightly warned Obama about his misguided and quixotic calls for a new kind of 'bipartisan' politics in DC) and do the right thing for America! The right has never been interested in passing meaningful health care reform, just like they had objected to Social Security and Medicare.

This time around, they are hoping for 1994 redux: To derail Obama's first major domestic initiative, like they did Clinton's, as a way for them to return to power as they did in the mid-term after they derailed ClintonCare, to stave off what looks like years in green pastures if the Dems manage to pass a good health care bill.

As the saying goes: "Fool me once shame on you; fool me twice shame on me." If with all we know about the right's desire to pass "socialist reforms" we still get outsmarted on this defining bill, we would be the fools, the right's unethical tactics notwithstanding.

It is time for the dormant Democratic Majority in DC to wake up and do what their numbers would allow them to do against a very small minority of right-wingers: Pass a meaningful health care reform this fall that will include a public option and "death panels" -- and send off the right-wingers to political exile for theforeseeable future...

There's only one reason that BHO wants these government nurses coming into our homes and that's to look for our guns.

"At what point will conservative rhetoric become so silly that even supposedly non-partisan media people can't sit through a diatribe with a straight face?"

That will never happen, at least not in our current climate of news media as entertainment.

The media gushed over Obama from the election through the inauguration. Then they immediately began constructing the narrative of Obama as the new Carter. The media (and I don't care if its Fox News or MSNBC) has served as nothing more than a mouthpiece for the right wing. Several weeks back I read a tiny little article, Stimulus Working. Got no attention at all. today I see panting stories about polls showing most people think the stimulous flopped.

There will be no healthcare reform because the media has killed it. Obama's failure is a bigger story than Obama's success. There's more tsk, tsking possible, a larger rogues gallery of conservative politicians and commentators who live for every second they can seeth on camera, a more tragic story arc that will last through numerous sweeps periods.

Its Network and Ned Beatty is still pulling the strings.

Obama's story has been written. He's a tragic failure. the corproate ownership of the media has decreed it.

It's disturbing, but the backlash will come someday, as long as Democrats take the high road. Or at least that's what I keep telling myself. It's disgusting the way some people in this country have so much venom for their neighbors.

Chill. Obama's got this. He'll give the signal for Democrats to capitulate and then he'll have the Republicans right where he wants 'em. Can't you see he's playing chess? Fuckin' chess, yo! If only those defeatist progressive crybabies would keep their fool mouth's shut and start compromising. The reason why they call it 'a line in the sand' is because it's so easy to erase, duh. Man, I feel so sorry for you people who can't see Obama's brilliant jujitsu. Oh, it's coming, and when it does, I'll be right here to tell you, 'I told you so.'

The thugs are like schoolyard bullies who have found a kid will do anything to avoid a fight and are debasing him for sport.

@ Eric:

A functioning Fourth Estate is a very necessary part of a functioning Democracy. But I would say the government itself is pretty much dysfunctional now also. There has been a growing disconnect between the people and what they want, and the folks elected to represent them. This is counter to the very foundation of our government, of course. In truth, the people don't like insurance companies, they don't like going bankrupt when they get cancer (man! good times there!). They don't like being told what to do with their bodies (abortion issues, homosexual issues). They have, actually, what could be termed a "liberal" (gasp!) point of view. And I live in a very red area. But people will vote against their best interests. They've been doing so for several decades now & it's resulted in a skewed and ineffectual Democratic party that no longer leans left. And what that means is that what people want and what elected officials give them is so far out of whack that I don't think there's any hope of changing it.

The irony here is that the longer we go without substantial and necessary reforms, the worse-off our country will get, and all the while exceptionalists will be be crowing about how America is the best country in the world. That was true, 50 years ago (thank you FDR & WWII vets). It has not been true for some time however, and the further right we skew, the more asinine our dialogue becomes, the more our country will decline.

Dems need to go on the offensive and start pushing back if they don't want a watered down, essentially paper-pushing bill.

Let's keep it simple. EVERY TIME the loons speak their madness, the answer is "bullshit" (or to put the onus on them, "you're making that up"). No lengthy explanations, no arguments (which they will ignore anyway). Just "bullshit".

Rachel Maddow is exactly correct: the Dems have huge majorities and MUST use them to enact meaningful legislation. No cave ins to the R's who aren't going to vote for it anyway.

We are all just so sick of these so called "real Americans" minority who exclude the majority of Americans. We are not stupid and we know what these screamers stand for...and it's not "we the people".

Except that the Democrats, who control the House, the Senate, and the White House, don't believe this, so consequently let the Republicans have their way.

preparing a response in advance

Here, let me help. The response should be, "That is a lie. The people spreading it know it is a lie."

See? Easy.

The larger problem here is not a matter of particular policies, or tactics, or talking points, or responses. The larger problem is that the party that now holds the reins of government seems to be unable or unwilling to recognize that the opposition is at best fundamentally deluded, and at worst fundamentally dishonest. Our Democratic leadership insists on pretending that the GOP will somehow be a serious partner in the business of government, when all they are is vandals.

[H]ome nurse visits are exactly the kind of pro-family policy that social conservatives would embrace.

Yes, but that was before it was revealed that the home nurses would be gay Mexican Muslim terrorist nurses.

The republicans should just change their name to the American Nazi Party and be done with it.

We are so fucked...

For real change - Feingold/Sanders in 2012!

Could you all take a minute and send an email to Congressman Weiner, he is a star and is being really vocal about a public option, he deserves our support. He is a NY (9th district I think) congressman. He is the one who called the repubs bluff about cancelling medicare.

The drill may be endless, but it's entirely predictable. THE WH should have been totally prepared instead of giving the right weeks to propagandize without a response. It's also predictable that Obama and the Dems will cave on every contested item and APOLOGIZE FOR THEM.

The right hates Obama for, among many things, "apologizing to foreign leaders". I don't hate Obama, but I do hate the way he apologizes and whimpers to the right.

He is compromising for exactly ZERO votes. The watered down useless bill will garner no GOP and no Bluedog votes. And they'll all blame the left when it doesn't work. The only thing the President will gain is cloture on a bad bill.

A.B.O. in 2012.

OK, so get on the phones and send those emails! Hound the Democrats and anyone else in Washington you can think of, and tell THEM all of this! Hound your friends and family to do likewise--TODAY!!!!!

OK, so get on the phones and send those emails! Hound the Democrats and anyone else in Washington you can think of, and tell THEM all of this!

Why? This is so stupid, that if the Democrats and everyone else in Washington can't see it by themselves, hounding them won't make any difference.

With the stenographers in the media cast in the role of zombie bots, these wacky distortions are a form of "denial of service" attack on the nation's bandwidth for rational and fact based discussion and reflection.

The right hates Obama for, among many things, "apologizing to foreign leaders". I don't hate Obama, but I do hate the way he apologizes and whimpers to the right.

Question: Who do you think is more respected worldwide and would be likely listened to by "foreign leaders" to potentially resolve international crises? Bush, who showed America and world the middle digit and was a disaster both at home AND abroad, or Obama who "apologizes" and "whimpers." Obama was "mis-underestimated" before, but I tend to believe those who think that we have not yet seen his last act ("la piece de resistance") on the health care debate...

Dems control the White House and both houses of Congress, by wide majorities!! Hello! Am I missing something? -dcshungu @ 2:08

No, that is what my high school teaches also. In reality, you only get to vote for them, somebody else owns them.

Some great analysis here in comments (as usual -- and nice snark, doubtful), and while I hate to discount it all, some folks are over-thinking this.

The reason the GOP keeps lying about ... well, everything, is simple: If meaningful health care reform were to pass, and actually work for the American people, the GOP would be out of power for a generation.

That's what happens when an entire political party bases it's entire belief system on the idea that government can't -- or, more accurately, shouldn't -- work for a majority of Americans. (Of course, why people like that would want to work for government is beyond me -- it'd be like an auto mechanic who hates the very idea of cars putting out ad after ad about his services. Why the hell bother? But I digress ...)

Yes, there are some tangential reasons they are fighting this so hard -- campaign donations, hatred of anything remotely considered "liberal," not caring about what happens to poor people ... all of which are part and parcel of the modern-day GOP.

But they are scared out of what-passes-for-their minds, and probably see this as a fight for their very survival.

They simply can't have a government program that works for most Americans. They just can't.

If Dems compromise on this, the Republicans will simply move on to something else they don't like, until there's nothing left of healthcare reform but the title. Recent history shows that the Dems will compromise on anything, and the Republicans (when they are in power) on nothing. You shouldn't have to keep learning the same lesson over and over.

Our political system just doesn't work the way it should.

Yet we have a Super majority in the House, the Senate, and a Democrat in the White House. Something is working. They did this same crap during the election, yet when push came to shove, people voted for us.

The problem with this debate is that it isn't a yes or no vote, like campaigns are. If there was a National referendum, it would pass, but there isn't. We are stuck with Harry Reid who is too scared to tell his momma he's not rubbing her bunions tonight.

From now on, when someone mentions the "dog days" of August, I'll think of the rabid dogs the ReThuglican Party has let loose on the orders of the Fat Cat health insurance companies.

I think we need to start calling it "illness insurance" instead, since that's what they're insuring we'll get.

Al at 2:08 nailed it. LOL

As for emailing, phoning, etc. Senators and Representatives, we should all be doing that to voice our support for the public option. However, emailing, writing outside your Congressional district/state is useless.

We need to encourage those who live in the Blue Dogs' districts, and in Louisiana, North Dakota, Missouri and other Blue Dog districts/states to email early and often. I've also heard faxes work really well because they are hard copy that can't be ignored. OTOH, maybe environmentalists who don't want to "kill trees" could take a pass on it this one time and kill a few trees to prevent some human deaths.

We have run across this same problem over and over - Thanks for great information.

thanks to the author for taking his time on this one.