Is this the way public discourse should play out?

From CNN.COM:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Congressman Earl Blumenauer says he's just a regular fellow "trying to get things accomplished." As a result, the Oregon Democrat tells me, he spends much of his time "looking for ideas that can bring people together -- simple, straightforward ideas that would help people and their families."

And so he proposed the infamous "death panels."

Really.

Before they were Palinized -- and turned into those nasty death panels ready to pounce on Grandma (that "goofy stuff," as he now calls it), Blumenauer had a good idea: help people prepare for the end of life.

As he wrote in The New York Times last weekend, the proposition was simple: "I found it perverse that Medicare would pay for almost any medical procedure, yet not reimburse doctors for having a thoughtful conversation to prepare patients and families for the delicate, complex and emotionally demanding decisions surrounding the end of life."

So, when he began work on health care reform, he included a provision that would allow Medicare to cover a voluntary doctor-patient discussion (only once every five years) about things like living wills, power of attorney and end-of-life treatment.

Oh, the horror.

Talk radio quickly got wind of the proposal when ex-New York Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey excoriated the measure as a depraved idea that would somehow counsel people to just go ahead and die faster. The absurd notion metastasized. And since Congress is the great lagging indicator, the bizarre interpretation predictably headed toward the floor of the two Houses. Republican leaders were unwilling to balk at a juicy opportunity to fan the flames -- even though the fire was fake. They courageously took on this great cause.

(read full article)

Really now. Is this the way our public discourse should play out?

1. Something is proposed.
   
2. Republicans find a way to twist it into something entirely different and trumpet their "message" to their party faithful.
3. Unquestioningly, they accept this as the message, react with righteous indignation, and repeat the message freely, spreading the meme and further obscuring it from its origin. It takes on a life of its own.
4. Politicians respond to this 'public outcry', as if it somehow turns this false message into truth.
5. The proposal goes down in flames.
   

Come on, people. We can do better. We must do better. This is counterfeit democracy at its worst.

The Thinking Man's Madrassa Smear

From Josh Marshall, Talking Points Memo:

If things continue on their current trajectory and Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee we should get used to much more of the still largely subterranean effort to scare Jews and broader portions of the electorate into believing that Obama is anti-Israel. The truth is that there's little apparent difference between Obama's position and Hillary's or, for that matter, anyone else in the mainstream of the Democratic party or most of the non-Taliban wing of Republican party. Here's a relatively mild example of the effort -- a story in the New York Sun about how Obama supporter Zbigniew Brzezinski (the article calls him an 'advisor' -- he's probably something between a supporter and advisor) is leading a delegation to Syria sponsored by the highly controversial left-wing Rand Corporation.

On another front, here is a recent post at The Politico about emails sent out by a member of Clinton's finance committee asking friends and acquaintances to "read the attached important and very disturbing article on Barack Obama." The enclosed article is this one by the neanderthal American Thinker blog by Ed Lasky.

There's much more of this going on than you realize. And it may be prepping to expand dramatically.

False Pretenses

From The Center for Public Integrity:

Following 9/11, President Bush and seven top officials of his administration waged a carefully orchestrated campaign of misinformation about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

By Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith

President George W. Bush and seven of his administration's top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made at least 935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Nearly five years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, an exhaustive examination of the record shows that the statements were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.

On at least 532 separate occasions (in speeches, briefings, interviews, testimony, and the like), Bush and these three key officials, along with Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan, stated unequivocally that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (or was trying to produce or obtain them), links to Al Qaeda, or both. This concerted effort was the underpinning of the Bush administration's case for war.

(full article)

Naval Harassment in Straight of Hormuz Made Up in DC?

From InterPressService:

POLITICS-US: How the Pentagon Planted a False Hormuz Story
Analysis by Gareth Porter*

WASHINGTON, Jan 15 (IPS) - Senior Pentagon officials, evidently reflecting a broader administration policy decision, used an off-the-record Pentagon briefing to turn the Jan. 6 U.S.-Iranian incident in the Strait of Hormuz into a sensational story demonstrating Iran's military aggressiveness, a reconstruction of the events following the incident shows.

The initial press stories on the incident, all of which can be traced to a briefing by deputy assistant secretary of defence for public affairs in charge of media operations Bryan Whitman, contained similar information that has since been repudiated by the Navy itself.

Then the Navy disseminated a short video into which was spliced the audio of a phone call warning that U.S. warships would "explode" in "a few seconds". Although it was ostensibly a Navy production, IPS has learned that the ultimate decision on its content was made by top officials of the Defence Department.

(full story)