Governor Palin 4 President

Hong Kong — Governor Sarah Palin is expected to speak about US foreign policy and China in her first keynote speech outside North America, Hong Kong organizers said on Monday.

The Governor is due to address hundreds of financial big-hitters at the CLSA Investors' Forum on Wednesday.  "We have asked her to address US foreign policy, to discuss her views on governance, healthcare, and of course, China," Jonathan Slone, chief executive officer of the Asia-focused brokerage.

Palin was chosen to speak since she's the front running Republican candidate in the next US presidential election and because of her influential role in politics, he said.

But CLSA, an arm of French bank Credit Agricole, decided to close Palin's session to the media after the former Alaska governor indicated that she would have to adjust her speech if reporters were present, Slone said.  "We are very pleased with her attitude towards us. Sarah could have come here and made a media circus," he said.

"But we said to her, 'Look, we want you to give the most information to our clients. Do you feel comfortable doing that with the press around?'  "She said, 'If I do that with the press in the room, I will have to say different things.'"

Slone said they decided to close the event to media because the primary objective of the annual forum was to let their clients get hold of as much industry-related information from the speakers as possible.  He said they had had many closed-door sessions in previous years for the same reason.   

The reality is the media has become the most anti-American entity on the plant and they should  not even be called the media.  They are strictly agenda driven (socialist) and continue  to cover  for the disaster Obama and radical Islam.  Their destruction would be the best thing for the American and the world.  Let's hope Governor Palin goes for the Media's jugular.

Past speakers at the annual CLSA event include US president Bill Clinton, Clinton's vice-president Al Gore and ex-Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan.  The Governor will be speaking in Hong Kong on the 23rd of September.

The Politico posted a lovely piece: White House talking points blast Palin. I feel this post sums up Obama’s frustrations with Governor Palin.

OUR White House cannot resist but to focus on Governor Palin and make her the center of opposition. Sounds like communist methodology. You have to give credit to The Governor when she speaks we all listen. Although I will not be listening to the speech tonight

Here's that section dedicated to The Governor:

On Gov. Palin's Attacks

Every non-partisan organization that has looked at her claims say they are false. And the ideas in her op-ed are both scary and risky. Eliminating Medicare and giving our seniors vouchers instead is a bad idea that we shouldn't adopt.

The fact that Obama needs to respond tells me Sarah Palin WINS again!

Senator Reverend Ruben Diaz

Chair, New York Senate Aging Committee

Legislative Office Building

Room 307

Albany, NY 12247

September 8, 2009

RE: H.R. 3200: America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 and Its Impact on Senior Citizens

Dear Senator Diaz,

Thank you for asking me to participate in the New York State Senate Aging Committee’s hearing regarding H.R. 3200, “America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009.” You and I share a commitment to ensuring that our health care system is not “reformed” at the expense of America’s senior citizens.

I have been vocal in my opposition to Section 1233 of H.R.3200, entitled “Advance Care Planning Consultation.”[1] Proponents of the bill have described this section as an entirely voluntary provision that simply increases the information offered to Medicare recipients. That is misleading. The issue is the context in which that information is provided and the coercive effect these consultations will have in that context.

Section 1233 authorizes advanced care planning consultations for senior citizens on Medicare every five years, and more often “if there is a significant change in the health condition of the individual … or upon admission to a skilled nursing facility, a long-term care facility… or a hospice program.”[2] During those consultations, practitioners are to explain “the continuum of end-of-life services and supports available, including palliative care and hospice,” and the government benefits available to pay for such services.[3]

To understand this provision fully, it must be read in context. These consultations are authorized whenever a Medicare recipient’s health changes significantly or when they enter a nursing home, and they are part of a bill whose stated purpose is “to reduce the growth in health care spending.”[4] Is it any wonder that senior citizens might view such consultations as attempts to convince them to help reduce health care costs by accepting minimal end-of-life care? As one commentator has noted, Section 1233 “addresses compassionate goals in disconcerting proximity to fiscal ones…. If it’s all about obviating suffering, emotional or physical, what’s it doing in a measure to ‘bend the curve’ on health-care costs?”[5]

As you stated in your letter to Congressman Henry Waxman of California:

Section 1233 of House Resolution 3200 puts our senior citizens on a slippery slope and may diminish respect for the inherent dignity of each of their lives…. It is egregious to consider that any senior citizen … should be placed in a situation where he or she would feel pressured to save the government money by dying a little sooner than he or she otherwise would, be required to be counseled about the supposed benefits of killing oneself, or be encouraged to sign any end of life directives that they would not otherwise sign.[6]

It is unclear whether section 1233 or a provision like it will remain part of any final health care bill. Regardless of its fate, the larger issue of rationed health care remains.

A great deal of attention was given to my use of the phrase “death panel” in discussing such rationing.[7] Despite repeated attempts by many in the media to dismiss this phrase as a “myth”, its accuracy has been vindicated. In the face of a nationwide public outcry, the Senate Finance Committee agreed to “drop end-of-life provisions from consideration entirely because of the way they could be misinterpreted and implemented incorrectly.”[8] Jim Towey, the former head of the White House Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, then called attention to what’s already occurring at the Department of Veteran’s Affairs, where “government bureaucrats are greasing the slippery slope that can start with cost containment but quickly become a systematic denial of care.”[9] Even Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson, a strong supporter of President Obama, agreed that “if the government says it has to control health care costs and then offers to pay doctors to give advice about hospice care, citizens are not delusional to conclude that the goal is to reduce end-of-life spending.”[10] And of course President Obama has not backed away from his support for the creation of an unelected, largely unaccountable Independent Medicare Advisory Council to help control Medicare costs; he had previously suggested that such a group should guide decisions regarding “that huge driver of cost . . . the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives….”[11]

The fact is that any group of government bureaucrats that makes decisions affecting life or death is essentially a “death panel.” The work of Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, President Obama’s health policy advisor and the brother of his chief of staff, is particularly disturbing on this score. Dr. Emanuel has written extensively on the topic of rationed health care, describing a “Complete Lives System” for allotting medical care based on “a priority curve on which individuals aged between roughly 15 and 40 years get the most chance, whereas the youngest and oldest people get chances that are attenuated.”[12]

He also has written that some medical services should not be guaranteed to those “who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens…. An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia.”[13]

Such ideas are shocking, but they could ultimately be used by government bureacrats to help determine the treatment of our loved ones. We must ensure that human dignity remains at the center of any proposed health care reform. Real health care reform would also follow free market principles, including the encouragement of health savings accounts; would remove the barriers to purchasing health insurance across state lines; and would include tort reform so as to potentially save billions each year in wasteful spending connected to the filing of frivolous lawsuits. H.R. 3200 is not the reform we are looking for.

Thank you for calling attention to this important matter. I look forward to working with you again to ensure that we keep the dignity of our senior citizens foremost in any health care discussion.

Sincerely,

Governor Sarah Palin

1 See http://edlabor.house.gov/documents/111/pdf/publications/AAHCA-BillText-071409.pdf

2 See HR 3200 sec. 1233 (hhh)(1); sec. 1233 (hhh)(3)(B)(1), above.

3 See HR 3200 sec. 1233 (hhh)(1)(E), above.

4 See http://edlabor.house.gov/documents/111/pdf/publications/AAHCA-BillText-071409.pdf

5 See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/07/AR2009080703043.html

6 See http://www.nysenate.gov/press-release/letter-congressman-henry-waxman-re-section-1233-hr-3200

7 See http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=113851103434

8 See http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/54617-finance-committee-to-drop-end-of-life-provision

9 See http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204683204574358590107981718.html

10 See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/10/AR2009081002455.html

11 See http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/magazine/03Obama-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1

12 See http://www.scribd.com/doc/18280675/Principles-for-Allocation-of-Scarce-Medical-Interventions

13 See http://www.ncpa.org/pdfs/Where_Civic_Republicanism_and_Deliberative_Democracy_Meet.pdf

Last week, Governor Palin posted these comments about Obama’s Chief Health Care Advisor Ezekiel Emanuel:

As I noted in my statement last week, nationalized health care inevitably leads to rationing. There is simply no way to cover everyone and hold down the costs at the same time. The rationing system proposed by one of President Obama’s key health care advisers is particularly disturbing. I’m speaking of the “Complete Lives System” advocated by Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the brother of the president’s chief of staff. President Obama has not yet stated any opposition to the “Complete Lives System,” a system which, if enacted, would refuse to allocate medical resources to the elderly, the infirm, and the disabled who have less economic potential. Why the silence from the president on this aspect of his nationalization of health care? Does he agree with the “Complete Lives System”? If not, then why is Dr. Emanuel his policy advisor? What is he advising the president on? I just learned that Dr. Emanuel is now distancing himself from his own work and claiming that his “thinking has evolved” on the question of rationing care to benefit the strong and deny the weak. How convenient that he disavowed his own work only after the nature of his scholarship was revealed to the public at large.

We are now seeing a further look into his scary past and views. The New York Post wrote a piece and Betsy McCaughey of The WSJ, wrote a very good investigative piece entitled Obama’s Health Rationer-in-Chief:

Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, health adviser to President Barack Obama, is under scrutiny. As a bioethicist, he has written extensively about who should get medical care, who should decide, and whose life is worth saving. Dr. Emanuel is part of a school of thought that redefines a physician’s duty, insisting that it includes working for the greater good of society instead of focusing only on a patient’s needs. Many physicians find that view dangerous, and most Americans are likely to agree.

The health bills being pushed through Congress put important decisions in the hands of presidential appointees like Dr. Emanuel. They will decide what insurance plans cover, how much leeway your doctor will have, and what seniors get under Medicare. Dr. Emanuel, brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, has already been appointed to two key positions: health-policy adviser at the Office of Management and Budget and a member of the Federal Council on Comparative Effectiveness Research. He clearly will play a role guiding the White House's health initiative.

Dr. Emanuel says that health reform will not be pain free, and that the usual recommendations for cutting medical spending (often urged by the president) are mere window dressing. As he wrote in the Feb. 27, 2008, issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA): "Vague promises of savings from cutting waste, enhancing prevention and wellness, installing electronic medical records and improving quality of care are merely 'lipstick' cost control, more for show and public relations than for true change."

True reform, he argues, must include redefining doctors' ethical obligations. In the June 18, 2008, issue of JAMA, Dr. Emanuel blames the Hippocratic Oath for the "overuse" of medical care: "Medical school education and post graduate education emphasize thoroughness," he writes. "This culture is further reinforced by a unique understanding of professional obligations, specifically the Hippocratic Oath's admonition to 'use my power to help the sick to the best of my ability and judgment' as an imperative to do everything for the patient regardless of cost or effect on others."

As a Governor Palin supporter, I am amazed that when she speaks about any topic the world is listening (and begging for more). I would love to know Glenn Beck's ratings after Gov Palin made the gusty announcement to watch his show. Obama's response was to hold several fake town-halls, several news conferences, hundreds of editorials defending ØbamaCare and many politicians, on both sides, attempt to debunk her ‘Death Panels’ but to no avail. Øbama has now called out the unions in an attempt to quiet the American people. What is so astonishing is Øbama has truly become the enemy of the people. All because of post on Facebook by Governor Palin. Impressive to say the least.

AS A DOCTOR, I FIND THIS DEEPLY TROUBLING AND QUITE AN EYE OPENER. A doctors priority should always be what is best for the patient. This evil person can only have the mind of an elitist which naturally coincides with a socialist or communist. These type of individuals (Øbama & cronies) believe the masses (all of us) deserve government rationed health care, simple jobs, no political voice and a maximum of 2 children. The political elites, Obama and his the inner circle, must have a life privileged so they can properly rule over us. SCARY!

Patrick S. Adams, from his Townhall.com Blog, posted a very piece putting liberals in there place and describing how Ronald Reagan would be very proud:

If it had been written from the Governor's desk, an ethics violation would have been filed because she used her office to advance her national agenda. If it had been said during a Katie Couric interview, it would have been another "I can see Russia from my house" joke. If it had been said at a campaign rally, it would have been glossed over or not reported. But because she said it from her Facebook page, bypassing all of the processes described above, it resonated and it resonated loudly. In using the quotationed words "death panel," Sarah Palin not only "won one for the good guys" as Seah Hannity so eloquently complimented her, she won one for the Gipper as well, and turned the tide on the media loving Obama-ites in the process.

Ronald Reagan must be looking down from Heaven with a smile holding the LP record he recorded in early 1961 on Socialized Medicine. That was the first time the "death panel maneuver" was used to circumvent the press and go directly to the people on the issue of health care reform. Sarah Palin knows Ronald Reagan. She carries his presence and his philosophy in her servant's heart. And the liberals hate it.

Before the mainstream media had a chance to rebut the "death panel" statement, Sarah Palin's Facebook page note was rocketing across the Internet, being linked to every computer in America via Twitter, TeamSarah.org and Conservatives4Palin.com. Suddenly, conservative columnists, radio show hosts and TV show hosts were all over it before CNN, the Washington Post and MSNBC could have it fact checked incorrectly without the use of the quotation marks.

Sarah Palin has defeated the Kobayashi Maru of politics. She resigned the office of Governor to "affect positive change.” So far, it's working.

"When the leader of the free world is complaining about a posting on the former governor of Alaska’s Facebook page, he’s got problems," Chris Stirewalt writes in The Washington Examiner piece "The Thrill is Gone for Obama and the Media."

Is there schadenfreude in knowing that the same media that short circuited Palin's vice presidential run is now the same media that is frustrated by the people not getting their message on health care reform? Or is just that the people aren't listening to the mainstream media anymore?

Howard Kurtz complains in The Washington Post that despite all the media coverage, the Obama position is not winning:

• Perhaps journalists are no more trusted than politicians these days, or many folks never saw the knockdown stories. But this was a stunning illustration of the traditional media's impotence.

• Still, it was a stretch for White House officials, who have a huge megaphone, to blame media coverage for the sinking popularity of health reform. It was equally odd for Gibbs to tell reporters that stories about Obama backing away from a government-run health plan were "entirely contrived by you guys" -- this after Gibbs and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius had said on Sunday morning shows that such a plan was not an essential part of Obama's proposal.

• For all the sound and fury, news organizations have labored to explain the intricacies of the competing blueprints. "NBC Nightly News" ran a piece examining how Obama's public health-insurance option would work. ABC's "World News " did a fact check on the end-of-life provision in the bill. "CBS Evening News" highlighted problems with the current system by interviewing some of the 1,500 people waiting at a free makeshift clinic in Los Angeles. Time ran a cover story on health care, titled "Paging Dr. Obama." And major newspapers have been filled with articles examining the nitty-gritty details. Those who say the media haven't dug into the details aren't looking very hard.

• But the healthy dose of coverage has largely failed to dispel many of the half-truths and exaggerations surrounding the debate. Even so, news organizations were slow to diagnose the depth of public unease about the unwieldy legislation. For the moment, the story, like the process itself, remains a muddle.

No, Mr. Kurtz, the American people understand the story. There is no muddle about popular opposition to the measure. The only muddle is in the brains of elitists and the mainstream media who get thrills up their legs when Obama speaks.

The key to a Republican comeback lies in the moment that the American people realize the media has been lying to them. That moment may have just arrived as citizens across the country read the health care bill and tweet links to its harshest provisions. The American people are doing just what Sarah Palin is doing. They are bypassing the media and communicating with each other via social networks.

The opposition to Obamacare is found in a grassroots that is now growing into a full blown natural turf lawn. Those in the media and the Obama Administration want to "cut that lawn." They mistook it for Astroturf. But Astroturf can't grow beyond its artificial capacity. Natural turf will overtake the land if its not "kept under control."

Our nation's founders would call this patch of grass "We the People."

The mainstream media and the propaganda arm of the Obama Administration have just met their death panel: the American people.

Read Full Article At:

http://reagantman.blogtownhall.com/2009/08/24/palin_wins_one_for_the_gipper.thtml

Governor Palin apparently enjoys The Wall Street Journal. As we see The NY Times sink The Wall Street Journal grows to more then double its readership. Despite heading into bankruptcy The NY Times continually demonstrates it is not even bottom-of-my-birdcage worthy by targeting Governor Palin. All to protect the disaster Obama. Unfortunately, their demise is a good thing.

Governor Palin posted this WSJ editorial by Jim Towey, President of Saint Vincent College, former head of White House Office of Faith-Based Initiatives and founder of Aging with Dignity:

Death Book for Veterans, Ex-soldiers don't need to be told they're a burden to society

Last year, bureaucrats at the VA's National Center for Ethics in Health Care advocated a 52-page end-of-life planning document, "Your Life, Your Choices." It was first published in 1997 and later promoted as the VA's preferred living will throughout its vast network of hospitals and nursing homes. After the Bush White House took a look at how this document was treating complex health and moral issues, the VA suspended its use. Unfortunately, under President Obama, the VA has now resuscitated "Your Life, Your Choices."

[...]

"Your Life, Your Choices" presents end-of-life choices in a way aimed at steering users toward predetermined conclusions, much like a political "push poll." For example, a worksheet on page 21 lists various scenarios and asks users to then decide whether their own life would be "not worth living."

The circumstances listed include ones common among the elderly and disabled: living in a nursing home, being in a wheelchair and not being able to "shake the blues." There is a section which provocatively asks, "Have you ever heard anyone say, 'If I'm a vegetable, pull the plug'?" There also are guilt-inducing scenarios such as "I can no longer contribute to my family's well being," "I am a severe financial burden on my family" and that the vet's situation "causes severe emotional burden for my family."

When the government can steer vulnerable individuals to conclude for themselves that life is not worth living, who needs a death panel? One can only imagine a soldier surviving the war in Iraq and returning without all of his limbs only to encounter a veteran's health-care system that seems intent on his surrender.

I was not surprised to learn that the VA panel of experts that sought to update "Your Life, Your Choices" between 2007-2008 did not include any representatives of faith groups or disability rights advocates. And as you might guess, only one organization was listed in the new version as a resource on advance directives: the Hemlock Society (now euphemistically known as "Compassion and Choices").

This hurry-up-and-die message is clear and unconscionable. Worse, a July 2009 VA directive instructs its primary care physicians to raise advance care planning with all VA patients and to refer them to "Your Life, Your Choices." Not just those of advanced age and debilitated condition—all patients. America's 24 million veterans deserve better.

[...]

If President Obama is sincere in stating that he is not trying to cut costs by pressuring the disabled to forgo critical care, one good way to show that commitment is to walk two blocks from the Oval Office and pull the plug on "Your Life, Your Choices." He should make sure in the future that VA decisions are guided by values that treat the lives of our veterans as gifts, not burdens.

Full Article At:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204683204574358590107981718.html

With all do respect, Governor Palin’s point is rather simple: Why are we investing in and contracting with more foreign corporations & countries to provide energy for the US? The real reason is Øbama is the worst type of hypocrite which makes him dangerous and very anti-American.

On-the-one-hand, he thinks he is attempting to appease the crazy environmentalists while supplying the US with more of its energy needs. 1st, with out a doubt the Brazilians will do more harm to the environment than any US corporation. 2nd, states like CA, ND, AK and others have large untapped oil reserves and with the CA’s & US deficit crisis we are investing in Brazil and Brazilian corporations for energy? Once again Øbama is spending tax payers money with absolutely no regard for the future as all good liberals do.

As we all are aware, Drilling at home creates thousands of jobs, we become less dependent on foreign sources of energy & safer and US dollars and revenue stay in the US. As anyone with common sense knows the point was to drill at home. So once again, Governor Palin is 100% correct.

Here we have 2 Bank spokesman, Phil Cogan and an unnamed administrator, speaking to Politico:

The bank does not rely on tax money and that Palin's statement ignores the bank's central function: To lend money to foreign companies for the purchase of American goods and services. Governor Palin’s comments were primarily targeting Øbama & cronies and than this tax-funded US corporation.

"It has to be produced by U.S. workers," Cogan said. Palin's statement refers to "creating jobs and health benefits in the U.S." "That's exactly what a purchase financed by the U.S. government would do," Cogan said. “The loan would likely finance engineering services, sales of ships to service oil platforms, or drilling equipment. This is the government doing what it's supposed to do: Create jobs and make sure that Americans get a fair shot at selling goods and services — not the British or the French or anyone else — and to help American workers compete on a level playing field"

The unnamed administration official had this to say: "This is like her and her death panels. “This is one more example of, 'Let's take a situation with a kernel of truth and blow it up and not let the facts ruin a good story.”

The answer is drill at home dummy and, next time please have someone read Governor Palin’s editorial to you. I also thought he had a great Barney Franks response.

“Your Tax Dollars Hard At Work: 1st Cars, Now Foreign Oil”

Today's Wall Street Journal contains some puzzling news for all Americans who are impacted by high energy prices and who share the goal of moving us toward energy independence.

For years, states rich with an abundance of oil and natural gas have been begging Washington, DC politicians for the right to develop their own natural resources on federal lands and off shore. Such development would mean good paying jobs here in the United States (with health benefits) and the resulting royalties and taxes would provide money for federal coffers that would potentially off-set the need for higher income taxes, reduce the federal debt and deficits, or even help fund a trillion dollar health care plan if one were so inclined to support such a plan.

So why is it that during these tough times, when we have great needs at home, the Obama White House is prepared to send more than two billion of your hard-earned tax dollars to Brazil so that the nation's state-owned oil company, Petrobras, can drill off shore and create jobs developing its own resources? That's all Americans want; but such rational energy development has been continually thwarted by rabid environmentalists, faceless bureaucrats and a seemingly endless parade of lawsuits aimed at shutting down new energy projects.

I'll speak for the talent I have personally witnessed on the oil fields in Alaska when I say no other country in the world has a stronger workforce than America, no other country in the world has better safety standards than America, and no other country in the world has stricter environmental standards than America. Come to Alaska to witness how oil and gas can be developed simultaneously with the preservation of our eco-system. America has the resources. We deserve the opportunity to develop our resources no less than the Brazilians. Millions of Americans know it is true: "Drill, baby, drill." Alaska is proof you can drill and develop, and preserve nature, with its magnificent caribou herds passing by the Trans Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS), completely unaffected. One has to wonder if Obama is playing politics and perhaps refusing a "win" for some states just to play to the left with our money.

The new Gulf of Mexico lease sales tomorrow sound promising and perhaps will move some states in the right direction, but we all know that the extreme environmentalists who serve to block progress elsewhere, including in Alaska, continue to block opportunities. These environmentalists are putting our nation in peril and forcing us to rely on unstable and hostile foreign countries. Mr. Obama can stop the extreme tactics and exert proper government authority to encourage resource development and create jobs and health benefits in the U.S.; instead, he chooses to use American dollars in Brazil that will help to pay the salaries and benefits for Brazilians to drill for resources when the need and desire is great in America.

Buy American is a wonderful slogan, but you can't say in one breath that you want to strengthen our economy and stimulate it, and then in another ship our much-needed dollars to a nation desperate to drill while depriving us of the same opportunity.

- Sarah Palin

This is absolutely amazing. It is looking like Governor Palin's efforts have not only put Øbama & team on defense but a total surrender. The Government-Run Health Care option is now 'not essential' or even better off the table according to several sources! As Governor Palin’s first move at a run towards the White House in 2012, she could not have made a stronger showing. I would suggest befriending Governor Palin on her Facebook page to keep up with the latest. She has been getting 20,000 new supporters or friend request a day.

According To James Taranto and The Wall Street Journal:

Palin Wins: If she’s dim and Øbama is brilliant, how did he lose the argument to her?

The first we heard about Sarah Palin's "death panels" comment was in a conversation last Friday with an acquaintance who was appalled by it. Our interlocutor is not a Democratic partisan but a high-minded centrist who deplores extremist rhetoric whatever the source. We don't even know if he has a position on ØbamaCare. From his description, it sounded to us as though Palin really had gone too far.

A week later, it is clear that she has won the debate.

Øbama himself took the comments of the former governor of the 47th-largest state seriously enough to answer them directly in his so-called town-hall meeting Tuesday in Portsmouth, N.H. As we noted Wednesday, he was callous rather than reassuring, speaking glibly--to audience laughter--about "pulling the plug on grandma."

The Los Angeles Times reports that Palin has won a legislative victory as well:

A Senate panel has decided to scrap the part of its health care bill that in recent days has given rise to fears of government "death panels," with one lawmaker suggesting the proposal was just too confusing.

The Senate Finance Committee is taking the idea of advance care planning consultations with doctors off the table as it works to craft its version of health care legislation, a Democratic committee aide said Thursday.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, ranking Republican on the committee, said the panel dropped the idea because it could be "misinterpreted or implemented incorrectly." . . .

The Palin claim about "death panels" was so widely discredited that the White House has begun openly quoting it in an effort to show that opponents of the health care overhaul are misinformed.

You have to love that last bit. The fearless, independent journalists of the Los Angeles Times justify their assertion that the Palin claim was "widely discredited" with an appeal to authority--the authority of the White House, which is to say, the other side in the debate. One suspects the breathtaking inadequacy of this argument would have been obvious to Times reporters Christi Parsons and Andrew Zajac if George W. Bush were still president.

[...]

For a wonderful example of such hubris, check out this post from David Kurtz of TalkingPointsMemo.com:

Is there anything quite as unsettling as when the nation's political class (and I use that term broadly to encompass the occasionally political, like the tea partiers) turns its fleeting but intense focus to a new (for them) and complex topic, like end-of-life issues?

It seems like years of painstaking work to nudge our death-denying culture toward a more frank and humane approach to our own mortality and dying could be erased by one misguided national discussion set off by none other than Sarah Palin.

Except that Palin didn't "set off" this discussion; Øbama did by trying to ram through legislation postalizing the medical system with no time for debate or reflection. How to care for dying patients is a serious, sensitive and complicated matter, one with which American families struggle every day

According To Alison Fitzgerald, Timothy J. Burger and Bloomberg:

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said providing citizens with the option of government-run insurance isn’t essential to the Obama administration’s proposed overhaul of U.S. health care.

“What’s important is choice and competition,” Sebelius said today on CNN’s “State of the Union.” The public option itself “is not the essential element.”

Asked if a cooperative plan is a possible replacement, Sebelius said she didn’t know what alternatives Congress would settle on among competing versions of the health legislation now under consideration. The Senate Finance Committee is discussing cooperatives, or networks of health-insurance plans owned by their customers, that would get started with government funds.

Sebelius’ comments suggest that Øbama may be considering backing off its commitment to create a government-run health insurance system to operate alongside private insurers in order to get health legislation passed.

“There are not the votes in the Senate for the public option, there never have been,” North Dakota Senator Kent Conrad, one of the lead Democratic negotiators on health care in the Finance Committee, said on “Fox News Sunday.”

“To continue to chase that rabbit, I think, is just a wasted effort,” he said.

“President Øbama and his cabinet have read the tea leaves,” said Senator Richard Shelby, an Alabama Republican, on the Fox program. The American people “don’t want a government- run program,” Shelby said. Shelby also said that the creation of co-ops, while “that would be government involvement” would be “a step in the right direction.”

According to The Nefarious AP:

Bowing to Republican (Governor Palin) pressure, Øbama's administration signaled on Sunday it is ready to abandon the idea of giving Americans the option of government-run insurance as part of a new health care system.

Facing mounting opposition to the overhaul, administration officials left open the chance for a compromise with Republicans that would include health insurance cooperatives instead of a government-run plan. Such a concession probably would enrage Øbama's liberal supporters but could deliver a much-needed victory on a top domestic priority opposed by GOP lawmakers.

Officials from both political parties reached across the aisle in an effort to find compromises on proposals they left behind when they returned to their districts for an August recess. Øbama had sought the government to run a health insurance organization to help cover the nation's almost 50 million uninsured, but he never made it a deal breaker in a broad set of ideas that has Republicans (Governor Palin) unified in opposition.