Dale, re: "Technically it's not the formal Republican leadership repeating those lies - McConnell, Boehner, Steele et al. I want to be very careful only to slam those who have made and repeated the despicable lies.
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From First Read:
"From NBC's Domenico Montanaro
As we were putting clips together for First Read, RNC Chairman Michael Steele was on MSNBC's Morning Joe and did nothing to dissuade viewers from believing that so-called "death panels" are in the bills moving their way through Congress.
As Politico writes, "Asked if he thinks there is a 'death panel' provision in the bill -- a suggestion that has been proven untrue and that the White House has spent a week trying to knock down -- Steele said he does not know. 'It may or may not be. I don’t know. We don’t know what the bill is,' Steele said. 'But there’s clearly an attempt by at least the House members to put in place a structure that causes concern for the American people in respect to end of life decisions. I think that’s a legitimate point. You don’t have to call it death panels if you don’t want to. You can call it a panel. I call it rationing.'"
As we've written previously on First Read, including again in First Thoughts this morning -- citing non-partisan fact-checkers -- there are no such "death panels."
But, reached for a response on Steele's comments, RNC spokeswoman Gail Gitchco not only defended them, but added that "death panels have not been totally debunked.""
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When your livelihood depends on the approval of a bunch of loud and ignorant people, your choices are to either echo their views or get another job. While some of the elected Republicans are undoubtedly intellectually and emotionally in tune with that crowd, there are probably plenty of them who simply feed them what they want to hear. In either case, you can't put a good spin on it and it's damaging the nation.
That's not to say that the Democrats in aggregate are anywhere close to being great but, in comparison, they're spectacular.
Ed, a registered independent. |
