As I Listened to Paul Ryan (R-WI) speak this morning, I was struck by his choice of words. Repeatedly, he used the word “regime” when describing the Obama Administration. There was, of course, the by now obligatory reference to “Socialism”, “European-style Cradle-to-the-Grave Social Welfare State”. Wow. That was a mouthful.

Of course, word association is nothing new in politics, but what seems new is the vitriol and misleading quality of the words being chosen by politicians, especially those on the right, these days. In just the last year, we’ve seen such shining samples as “Death-Panels”, “Government Takeover”, “Socialist State”, “Marxist President”, “Regime”, “Socialized Medicine” and my personal favorite, “IRS Agents will being to multiply”.

According to a recent Rasmussen poll, people trust Republicans more than they trust Democrats on the health care issue. I think that means Fox news won, and the Texas School Board will write the history.

Last week, I received an email invitation to attend Senator Al Franken’s open house at his St. Paul office yesterday from 3 to 7pm. I figured his office would be packed with people by 5pm, so my best bet would be to arrive at three if I wanted to speak to Al.

Sheesh, that Palin gal is dumb.

The Continuing Blowback Of The Canadian Heathcare Haters’ Club, Inc.

Imagine for a moment you’re a general about to embark on a decisive military campaign and your intelligence service secures a copy of your opponent’s entire campaign strategy. You open it and you see his battle plans laid out before you, key forces, weaponry, lines of attack, points of weaknesses, etc.

The industry coalition that promised last week to help Obama cut healthcare costs by $2 trillion over 10 years is now stressing that their promise doesn’t commit them to taking any specific steps to achieve that goal each year–which is tantamount to saying that pledge was as empty as so many Media Consortium critics predicted.