There's nothing new under the sun, especially when it comes to the frothing at the mouth right-wing rage over health care reform. But thanks to the 24/7 media's transformation of politics into just another form of entertainment, delusional Birthers, deceitful Deathers, raging Teabaggers and town hall intimidators are dominating press coverage of the debate. And […]

"When politics is just another form of entertainment," I lamented in a presentation on the 2008 campaign last year, "the first thing that suffers is the truth." And so it is with the incendiary health care debate and so much else of what now passes for political discourse in the United States. Bolstered by flame-throwing […]

After his predictable experience with unified Republican obstructionism on the stimulus bill, President Obama must be high if he thinks there's a glimmer of hope for bipartisan cooperation on health care reform. Not because Sarah Palin is doubling-down on her "death panels" lie or Newt Gingrich is now fear-mongering over end-of-life care for the elderly […]

Slowly but surely, the mainstream media and even some Republican politicians are starting to roll back the GOP's vicious lies and fear-mongering over what Sarah Palin deemed Obama's "death panels." Ironically, many of the same conservatives who demanded the federal government should make the end-of-life decision for Terri Schiavo are labeling optional Medicare-funded consultations "euthanasia." […]

As the ever more combustible health care debate rages across America, the state of Oklahoma has become the poster child for the conflict and its contradictions. A 2007 study by the Commonwealth Fund ranked Oklahoma dead last in state health care performance. Yet in 2008, the Sooner State remained among the most Republican in the […]

Once in a rare while, a book captures the spirit of its age. So it is with Nixonland, Rick Perlstein's stunning chronicle of the rise and fall of Tricky Dick. But his story of the "fracturing of America" isn't simply the harrowing tale of how Nixon, "a serial collector of resentments," fanned the flames of […]

If nothing else, Republican Senator John Cornyn is an irony producing machine. During the Terri Schiavo affair, the former Texas Supreme Court Justice was at the forefront of the GOP campaign to intimidate and threaten judges. Now after his fierce defense of President Bush's regime of illegal NSA domestic surveillance, Cornyn is comically warning that […]

Every football coach will tell you: if a play works, keep running it until the defense stops you. And so it is with the health care debate. Facing overwhelming public support for health care reform, right-wing groups have deployed mobs to disrupt events and "rattle" Democratic politicians in Austin, Philadelphia, Cincinnati and across the country. […]

In his latest fear-mongering on health care reform, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell warned that Democrats are intent on "sticking it to seniors with cuts to Medicare." Of course, McConnell's statement isn't merely false, it is comically so. After all, even as the program marked its 44th anniversary this week, his Republican colleagues like Roy […]

Even as Republicans wage their new war against the latest efforts at health care reform, they are still fighting the last one. 44 years after the passage of Medicare, Republicans leaders like Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) are attacking Democratic proposals by blasting the popular health system for America's elderly. Sadly for the GOP, Medicare's proven […]