Betsy and the Bubbleheads

From TALKING POINTS MEMO:

In a heated and sometimes vitriolic debate Monday night, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) repeatedly called out former Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey for lying about health care reform. He said debating her was like “debating a pyromaniac in a straw man factory,” prompting intense and immediate reaction from the audience.

“Debate like a man!” hollered one bespectacled, middle-aged man. Another quieted the ensuing shouts with, “This is his speaking time, not yours!”

Weiner and McCaughey arguably represent the furthest ends of the health care reform spectrum. Weiner is a progressive Congressman who wants a single-payer, government run health care system. McCaughey, who recently posited that reform may lead to government-mandated euthanasia, helped kill the Clintons’ health care plan in the 90s.

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Betsy Bubblegum and some of her gal pals: Michele Batshit Bachmann, Virginia Gummint’ll Kill Ya Foxx, Ginny Drop Dead Brown-Waite, and Princess Sarah Death Panel Palin

Can we get a death panel to work on her Facebook account?

From FIRST READ at MSNBC:

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was invited to testify before the New York state Senate Aging Committee by its Chairman, Rev. Ruben Diaz. Instead of testifying, Palin has submitted written testimony, and publicizes it via her latest Facebook “Note.”

In it, she defends her contention that there are, in fact, “death panels” in health-care legislation being considered in Congress — despite independent fact-checkers repeatedly debunking the notion.

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The Rethugs’ll Be the Death of Us Yet

From George’s Bottom Line at abcNEWS:

In his first comments on Sarah Palin’s “death panel” claims, John McCain is standing by his former running mate.

Sort of…

He doesn’t like the phrase “death panels,” but he defended the substance of Palin’s charge, saying the Democrats have only themselves to blame for the controversy.

Kids, it’s official. This is how seriously anyone should be taking Captain Underpants:

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Heavens to Betsy! You’re Fired!

From MEDIA MATTERS:

The Washington Independent highlights Betsy McCaughey’s resignation from the board of directors of Cantel Medical Corp., a medical products company, to “avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest.” McCaughey’s resignation coincides with her attempt to revive her false end-of-life counseling smears on The Daily Show.

According to Cantel’s press release:

LITTLE FALLS, N.J., Aug 21, 2009 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX News Network/ — CANTEL MEDICAL CORP. (NYSE: CMN) announced that on August 20, 2009 it received a letter of resignation from Ms. Elizabeth McCaughey as a director of the Company. Ms. McCaughey, who had served as a director since 2005, stated that she was resigning to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest during the national debate over healthcare reform.

McCaughey has been on Cantel’s board since 2005, but her apparent conflict of interest hasn’t kept CNN and Fox News from repeatedly hosting her to spread false attacks on health care reform.

All that translates to: Old Betsy Wetsy made such a fool of herself on The Daily Show that she got canned!

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You make us upchuck when you make shit up, Chuck!

From Joan Walsh at Salon:

I’ve said this before: It’s getting past time for President Obama to spell out specifics about which healthcare reform plan he supports, given the five House and Senate bills and umpteen other proposals circling Washington. And unfortunately for Obama’s dreams of bipartisanism, it’s way past time for him to give up his hopes that he can bring “sensible” Republicans on board with a smart, fair bill.

I’ve suspected that was true for a while, but today is the day to, well, pull the plug on that project. Unbelievably, one GOP senator who’s been held up as a paragon of reason and bipartisan comity, Iowa’s Chuck Grassley — one of three Republicans negotiating with three Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee — trashed Obama’s plan today in terms that went beyond Sarah Palin’s ignorant rant.

…snip…

“There is some fear because in the House bill, there is counseling for end-of-life,” Grassley told a town hall crowd. “And from that standpoint, you have every right to fear. You shouldn’t have counseling at the end of life. You ought to have counseling 20 years before you’re going to die. You ought to plan these things out. And I don’t have any problem with things like living wills. But they ought to be done within the family. We should not have a government program that determines if you’re going to pull the plug on grandma.”

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Why worry about death panels, when she’s gonna kill us all with stupidity?

From Joan Walsh at Salon:

I’ve been writing about “town hells” and anti-health care reform hysterics, as well as the crazy Birthers, for a few weeks. Every few days, I think: Maybe we’re giving these fringe folks the oxygen they need; maybe we should ignore them. But it all got even loonier today, and it can’t be ignored.

Alex Koppelman wrote about it immediately: Sarah Palin (or her handlers) posted a message on Facebook decrying the “death panels” she says – wrongly, bizarrely, viciously — Obama’s health care reform will establish. She also claimed such panels might well have ended the life of her son Trig, born with Down’s Syndrome.

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Fear Factor: the House of Reprehensibles

From POLITICO:

Sean Hannity believes it. So does House Minority Leader John Boehner. Talk show host Fred Thompson calls it “the dirty little secret” of the health care reform debate.

The focus of their ire is a provision tucked deep inside the House bill that would provide Medicare coverage for an end-of-life consultation once every five years. If a person falls ill with a life-threatening disease, more frequent sessions would be allowed.

Republicans are now using this language as a wedge between senior citizens and Democrats. Boehner and Republican Policy Committee Chairman Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.) issued a statement last week saying it “may start us down a treacherous path toward government-encouraged euthanasia” — even though the concept behind the provision has been embodied in federal law since 1990 and has been promoted by Republicans and Democrats for years.

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Pants on Fire

From Conor Clarke at the Atlantic:

One of the wackier developments in the recent health care debate has been the sudden return of Betsy McCaughey. Fifteen years ago McCaughey wrote an error-laden piece for the New Republic, a piece the magazine later recanted, that became a rallying cry of the successful effort to kill Clintoncare, and that McCaughey parlayed into a short-lived career as the lieutenant governor of New York. McCaughey’s health-care shtick in 1994 was to brag about having read all 1,000-plus pages of the bill and cite, with Biblical certainty, obscure provisions that made the Clintons look like serial killers.

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