These Death Panels

As I listen to the national debate on healthcare, I'm completely amazed by some of the lies propagated, not only by the administration, but also by the media. For an example from the president himself, read this: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/aug/12/barack-obama/obama-has-praised-single-payer-plans-past/. And, of course, the mainstream media didn't fact-check, somebody else had to find the video for them. But it gets even worse!

In the break room at a teaching site in Phoenix, Arizona, I watched the anchors on MSNBC completely flame the right, asking if people would put up with these scare tactics, talking about "death panels" and the like. The response from both the administration AND the media has been, "What death panels?" "What are you talking about?" But I knew the truth: I have been talking with friends and family about this issue since before "death panel" became a popular term. Why? Because I read about it, in mid-July, on the New York Times website. Read it: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/magazine/19healthcare-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=5.

Now, this guy, Peter Singer, is Australian, but he is also professor of bioethics at Princeton, and he's writing here in the Times. It becomes fairly obvious from a brief scan of his wikipedia page that he's very liberal, and we all know the Times is, too. In any case, my answer to the liberal administration and media's question, "What death panels?" is, "These death panels - the ones you say are going to be necessary, and such a good idea."

So, the lesson for today: when liberals say they've never supported something, and would never even consider it, double-check your facts. There's more than a snowball's chance they didn't feel that way a couple years, even a couple months ago, before they realized how much the general public hates their best ideas. And it's always so much more fun to nail them with their own websites.

That is all,
Andrew