Mike wrote this yesterday about the Sarah Palin onslaught against ObamaCare’s Death Panels:
When Sarah Palin made her “death panels” charge, the radicals once again came scurrying out of the woodwork. Obama sent his minions out to debunk what he calls disinformation (otherwise known the TRUTH). In this case, Obama sent out his own version of Dr. Mengele. Ezekiel Emanuel, a physician and brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and a longtime proponent of denying care to citizens based on the value of their worth to society (if you’re old and sick, you have no value).
The radicals came out yesterday, the beltway elitist “Republicans” came out today. In an editorial at National Review Online the editors, in the infinite wisdom, decide to attack Sarah Palin. Not Obama, the most far-left President in history, as he and his cohorts are in retreat over their socialist bill. No, they attack Palin:
To conclude from these possibilities to the accusation that President Obama’s favored legislation will lead to “death panels” deciding whose life has sufficient value to be saved — let alone that Obama desires this outcome — is to leap across a logical canyon. It may well be that in a society as litigious as ours, government will err on the side of spending more rather than treating less. But that does not mean that there is nothing to worry about. Our response to Sarah Palin’s fans and her critics is to paraphrase Peter Viereck: We should be against hysteria — including hysteria about hysteria.
Just one more bit of evidence that proves the beltway elite, either Republican or Democrat, are just completely out of touch with the people. She controlled this debate, from facebook of all places, and forced that provision OUT of that bill. Washington Post’s Anne Kornblut was amazed:
We are back to is she crazy or is she crazy like a fox debate about Governor Palin. We all wrote her off a month ago. We said she would have no platform if she was not governor of Alaska.
~~~Here she is actually driving the debate whether its honest or not, whether what she is saying is true or not and as you point out she is doing it from Facebook when this White House was supposed to be the “Facebook White House.
And Andy McCarthy did a great job in taking NRO to task for it’s misguided ire:
I don’t see any wisdom in taking a shot at Governor Palin at this moment when, finding themselves unable to defend the plan against her indictment, Democrats have backed down and withdrawn their “end-of-life counseling” boards. Palin did a tremendous service here. Opinion elites didn’t like what the editors imply is the “hysteria” of her “death panels” charge. Many of those same elites didn’t like Ronald Reagan’s jarring “evil empire” rhetoric. But “death panels” caught on with the public just like “evil empire” did because, for all their “heat rather than light” tut-tutting, critics could never quite discredit it. (“BusHitler,” by contrast, did not catch on with the public because it was so easily refuted.)
The editors implicitly concede that Palin is on to something. Indeed, from an Obamaesque perch, they find themselves admonishing both “Sarah Palin’s fans and her critics.” With due respect, there’s a right side and a wrong side on this one. Above the fray is not gonna cut it.
Sure, the editors acknowledge, there’s lots of reason to be worried that we’re speeding down the road toward euthanasia and that Obamacare could make things worse. But it’s somehow “to leap across a logical canyon” to suggest that death panels are imminent or that they are what Obama wants.
On the latter, who cares what Obama personally wants? I don’t see why we should play into the personality cult that the Left is hoping will overcome the deep substantive flaws in the president’s policies. I happen to think that something like death panels is exactly what is desired by Obama — who is an abortion extremist, who supported a form of infanticide when he was an Illinois state legislator, and who has wondered aloud about the value of end-of-life care provided for his own grandmother. But Obama’s personal feelings are beside the point. What matters is what’s in the bill.
In suggesting it’s hyperbole to say death panels are — or were — in the bill, the editors engage in a little hysteria of their own, describing the function of such panels as “deciding whose life has sufficient value to be saved.” But few people worried about death panels think the process will be anything so crude. It will be what Mark Steyn described in his column this weekend: the bureaucrats won’t pull the plug on you; they will gradually restrict your access to various forms of treatment while you wither away prematurely. Maybe if Palin had called them “Dying on the Vine Panels” our opinion elites would have been more understanding — though I doubt it, Palin derangement syndrome having proved itself more infectious than Bush derangement syndrome.
The editors further suggest that Palin could be wrong — not that she is wrong, but she could be. After all, they reason, “it may well be that in a society as litigious as ours, government will err on the side of spending more rather than treating less.”
Really? First of all, there is no more to spend. Second, the editors themselves admit at the very beginning of the editorial that “rationing is inevitable in medicine. Not everything that might be in a patient’s best interest can be done in a world of finite resources.” The whole point of health-care “reform” is to enable something other than the combination of individual liberty and market forces — namely, government bureaucrats — to do the inevitable rationing. Third and finally, as I discuss in my column this morning, the Obamacare proposal has a remedy for “a society as litigious as ours”: it systematically cuts off access to the courts so that the decisions of the executive branch are final. The bill is designed to insure against litigation pressure to spend more rather than treat less.
I think Palin was right to argue her point aggressively. Largely because she did, a horrible provision is now out of this still horrible Obamacare proposal. To the contrary, if the argument had been made the way the editors counsel this morning, “end-of-life counseling” would still be in the bill. We might have impressed the Beltway with the high tone of our discourse and the suppleness of our reasoning, but we’d have lost the public. I respectfully dissent.
Sarah Palin embodies the conservative of today, the conservatives that hold fast to our best conservative traditions and reminds us that yes indeed….another Reagan just might come along. The Conservative Comeback:
In one week Sarah Palin had a portion of the bill tossed out and along with the help of townhall protesters has put ObamaCare on life support. Can anyone point me to a National Review article that has made headlines to damage this bill? Hell, can anyone show me anything they wrote that made headlines during the campaign? Actually, that’s not fair. They did make headlines when Christopher Buckley endorsed Barack Obama. Oh, and when Kathleen Parker called on Palin to resign. Keep up the great work.
Those wishy-washy conservatives that pepper the landscape of NRO will only lead to a future best described by Dan Riehl:
What is it going to take for conservatives to finally accept that William F. is dead, the heirs to the throne, with too few exceptions, are a bunch of 2nd and 3rd generation elitist brats who belong to the Inside the Beltway set? They are not a part of the conservative movement that must re-define American politics, just as Reagan did, if there is to be anything like conservatism going forward in the nation’s political discourse.
~~~A combination of American heroes, including the late William F. Buckley and, even more importantly, Ronald Reagan brought new voices and ideas to Washington over two decades ago. Unfortunately, as happens, the seedlings of failure always come hidden within the fruits of great success.
The sprouts of Buckley and Reagan took root, flourished for a time and now seem tired-old and dying on thick-ish vines. If we can’t root these weeds up and out, we should at least smother them in dung and fertilizer so as to prepare a bedding for what must come next.
Their continued feeding and nurturing through donations by conservatives is, not just a mistake, but an utter waste of resources we can ill afford to squander by supporting oily-leaved, slippery eyesores such as NRO.
Please, if you “oily-leaved, slippery eyesores” (wonderful description btw Dan) hate winning that much then get out of the ballpark and let the real conservatives play.
UPDATE
Obama dishonesty on full display at Saturday’s townhall
See author page
If only DC could be bulldozed into the Potomac, and then the whole thing just washed out to sea! What a clean up that would be (provided it did not happen during the August recess).
I don’t understand why with so many out of work and having free time, haven’t already marched on D.C. and said ENOUGH to Both Democrats and Republicans, BY both Democrats and Republicans !!!
I think it is going to happen on 9/12.
To all of you at Flopping Aces – thank you so much for keeping all of us informed. Having just recently discovered blogs, I really do appreciate what you do. Six months ago I did not know what a “blog” was. I am a relatively old lady, and thought I had heard just about every word to impugn someone, but after reading some of those other blogs, I was blushing! Some of them were so abusive and blatanlty lying, I will never go back to them. I am solidly behind Flopping Aces and a few others. I decided to only read the ones that fight hard for truth and honesty.
So, to all of you contributing to this site, many thanks for being the beacon of light during these dark days of Obamaland.
God bless you and your families
Madalyn
Madalyn, the Internet is very much like a cow pasture. There is much good to be found out there, but you do have to watch where you step.
I doubt that you are a whole lot older than I am, but age really doesn’t matter here. Just pitch in, and put in your two cents worth.
Ha, Ha, Ha! Thanks for the laugh!
THE GREAT AMERICAN WIMP WILL NEVER DO ANYTHING!
Kudos to Palin for accomplishing what beltway conservatives could not.
That said, I’d only say don’t throw the NRO baby out with the bathwater, there’s some good stuff good ideas and good people over there too.
I agree that there’s far too much anti-Palin sentiment on the right; she deserves praise and gratitude rather than scorn. But real conservative ideas (not about her, about the issues) are worth listening to, regardless of the source. And NRO, just like Hot Air or Fox News often gets things wrong. But they also get things right.
And they also are a better read than Newsweek or Time. Guaranteed.
Newsqueak and Tim are simply propaganda organs for the socialist. The admit it. Wasn’t it Newsqueak that had the cover article, “We are all Socialists Now”?
I read them form time to time at the doctors office, and I have had several medical appointments recently. Consequently I have a fresh sample. It is the most unabashed lying I think I have ever seen. I can hardly keep a straight face reading some of this stuff it is so absurd, it is more like a comic book.
This highlights the disconnect between the recent survey that had every state with more conservatives than liberals, yet Republicans in DC have been pummeled the last couple of elections. Perhaps it is because the Republicans in the beltway aren’t playing to the conservative majorities out in the states. NRO has a number of those in the beltway types not playing to normal conservatives, or libertarians for that matter. Their in the beltway “nuance” is killing their support in the states.
Sarah has a way with words. She cuts right through the bs and goes for the jugular. DIMocrats can’t stand it. They’re used to being the hatchet men, but Sarah just won’t stand still and be victimized. Sarah directed the debate from Facebook while the Big Zero used the Internet to try to turn the public into spying and informing on their neighbors. Democracy 1. Totalitarianism 0.
Sarah Palin is right, if overhyped- when the government rations care, as it inherently will, they will not pull the plug on granny- they just will not plug her in in the first place. You arrive at the “death Panel” by omission, not commission. And if the views of John Holdren, our illustrious “Science” Czar gain traction, people who are genetically predisposed to a fault, like sickle cell, or down syndrome, will not be allowed to breed, or forced to be aborted.
Sarah is right to be wary- she just said it in a gaudy way, that’s all.
I probably should point out that while the provision might be out of the bill, the bill itself is the death panel, or as described above, the “withering on the vine panel”- while end of life counseling might be out, end of life is still in.
See, I like NR and NRO. But I think Palin wins here. While the beltway conservatives hem and haw about procedural issues and the proper debate etiquette, Palin actually attacked the death panel provision in a way most people can easily understand.
If we’re gonna sit here and debate style points defined solely by the left, we’re doomed before we even begin.
It’s time for the elitists to step aside and let the rest of us get the job done. Sarah understands this is a pitched battle over the next 4 years for the heart and soul of our country, she’s not going to worry about what they think of her – she’s too concerned about what will happen if she does NOT speak out.
Good for her, I love it that she twists their panties into a bunch.
I liked how Andrew McCarthy put it. The same whiny, inside the beltway pseudo-conservatives now attacking Palin said the same thing about Reagan.
And Dan Riehl got it right too:
I couldn’t find a list of WHO these editors are. If anyone does find it, would they please post the names?
“Elitist” is too kind for these SNOBS
Another reason why the Elites of the “Republican Party” are out of touch with the regular Republican voter and need to be removed from office. If they can’t understand and Support Sarah Palin then obviously they are not able to govern for the people. Throw the bums out.
When I first read Sarah’s statement, reading the words, “death panel”, I thought it was a bit strong. But, that lasted about 2 seconds. When you dig into the meat of why she chose those words, it’s entirely spot on. She just prefers to cut to the chaste, and gained the ear of the Obama Admin. by doing so.
Years ago, I worked as a temp at an HMO. Not being particularly political at that time, I still observed the strangeness of seeing a doctor on staff there, going through patient files with the help of a nurse, and deciding which they would cover and those they’d decline to cover. I remember thinking that he was in a way, playing the role of God, and it definitely unnerved me. I don’t know that these were end of life cases, but I think it does exemplify the current debate.
@Madalyn:
Thanks for your kind words, Madalyn, and welcome aboard!
An article worth your time to read:
This one might make your blood boil…
http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2009/08/health-care-trading-cards-collect-em.html
Madalyn…
Don’t worry about that “relatively old” thing… one of the nice things about the internet and blogs is that there is no age, there is no skin color, there is no sex…it’s all just people’s ideas presented as words on a screen. You are what you put forth.
Besides…all the _best_ blogs have a strong representation of seniors. That’s part of what makes them among the best!! Well aged improves the quality!!
I don’t comment much on here, but have read for a long time. I will say the comments on here are far more intelligent than on the others I read.
@Curt
By what objective measure you claim Palin won the debate? Are these ‘death panels’ being dismantled as we speak?
@GaffaUK: You ought to try and keep up with the story before you comment.
The provision in the bill which would set up these “death panels” was stricken from the Senate bill. It’s still in the House version.
It seems as thought Erik Erickson of RedState is right in his assessment that a coup of a political party is necessary.
I’m not sure it does much good taking death panels out of the current bill when it was funded in the stimulus bill.
Zeke Emmanuel is said to be included (naturally) on the proposed death panel.
Gaffa, I’d say that blake had it nailed correctly in comment #11, and it bears repeating.
The point is, all policy and regulations governing what is covered, and to whom, as well as conditions for denial, are not laid out specifically in the bill. That is left to other powers… not the least of which is the Independent Medicare Advisory Council Act – the creation of a “death panel” of health czars who seize Congressional power and are tasked with changing Medicare coverage and reimbursement amounts bi-annually in order to rein in costs. This bill is far being dismantled.
And, in fact, any public option that has government bureaucrats that decide under what instances government health care will be provided, or denied, and whatever “counseling” or other mandate hoops they must jump with physicians to get the care is, in essence, a form of death panel.
Lest ye think that all “rationing” by private insurance is equivalent, you have to understand that supplemental policies will not cover treatment that is covered… in some way… by the primary policy care. Therefore if the public option will offer morphine as a “treatment”, or assisted suicide (as legal in Oregon) as “treatment”, private insurers may just exercise the option to not cover any other alternative. Even if superior. This already goes on daily in the Medicare world.
blake said it as good as it can be said. There is no “public option” that is acceptable. They are, every one, a financial spiral into bankruptcy and piss poor medical care. If Medicare cannot be funded today for under 20% of the population, using funds taken from every working American, there is no logic in adding over 50% of the US population to a public option, funded by taxpayers. Witness the incoming comments of Dr. Anne Doig, new president of the Canadian Medical Association, opining that the Canadian health system is imploding.
No… the current bill is not a single step to single payer, as Canada has. It is, however the ultimate quest.
However, I will say this… a large coup has been waged successfully. The American public has found a “description” that wakes them up. A “death panel” by any other name (IMAC, Comparate Effective Research, or whatever) is still a government “death panel”.
The choices for Americans is this… take the “cheap” government base, and risk denial in supplementals, or buy a gold plated package from your private insurer (the cost of which is driven up by under reimbursement of public options, inordinate bureaucratic red tape, trial lawyer friendly malpractice laws, and group access limited by nanny mandates).
However, in the US of A, the over 65 are denied this option. With a “new age Medicare” public option, it’s unlikely to be any different.
When you have the 500 billion Barry says he wants out of Medicare, you will have more rationing there also.
The bare facts are this- he could have bought everyone healthcare for less than he is wanting to spend here- and he doesn’t have the real money to pay for it.
It is not about health, it’s really about control- you can see it in this bill, and the Cap and Taxbill- everything he is proposing is unconstitutional, and designed to get government’s big foot in the door that is your lives.
It’s ALL about control.