Sarah Palin's claim that a Democratic health care bill would inevitably create "death panels" has won PolitiFact.com's "Lie of the year".
Of all the falsehoods and distortions in the political discourse this year, one stood out from the rest.
"Death panels."
.... The phrase "death panels" appears to be original to Palin. A search of news databases showed no use prior to her Facebook posting.
History professor Ian Dowbiggin, who has written several books on medical history, euthanasia and eugenics, said he had never heard the term before Palin used it. He said the phrase invokes images of Nazi Germany, which denied life-saving care to people who were not deemed useful enough to broader society. Adolf Hitler ordered Nazi officials to secretly register, select, and murder handicapped people such as schizophrenics, epileptics, disabled babies and other long-stay hospital patients, according to Dowbiggin.
"It's not far-fetched to make the historical argument that as you get government more and more involved in health care, you create an environment that is more hospitable to the legalization of forms of euthanasia," Dowbiggin said. "But the Nazi example should be used very advisedly."
"This is an issue that's being exploited by political figures who are opposed to the health care legislation," he added. "They're trying to sensationalize the issue as much as possible to drum up opposition."
One of the unfortunate things in all this is that Palin has yet to express even the smallest regret for her characterization, telling the National Review in November, she would "characterize them like that again, in a hearbeat".
This -- despite the fact that many conservatives rolled their eyes when Palin introduced the alarmist term.
Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer immediately dismissed the idea.
Let's see if we can have a reasoned discussion about end-of-life counseling.
We might start by asking Sarah Palin to leave the room. I've got nothing against her. She's a remarkable political talent.
But there are no "death panels" in the Democratic health care bills, and to say that there are is to debase the debate.
The editors at the National Review agreed that Palin's language was false and unhelpful to the debate.
To conclude from these possibilities to the accusation that President Obama’s favored legislation will lead to “death panels” deciding whose life has sufficient value to be saved — let alone that Obama desires this outcome — is to leap across a logical canyon.
.... Our response to Sarah Palin’s fans and her critics is to paraphrase Peter Viereck: We should be against hysteria — including hysteria about hysteria.
Fox host Neil Cavuto:
"I don't think we can advance debate in this with either name-calling or hyper-adjective using here and think we're going to make progress, because then we're no better than the folks that we chastise, right?"
The Weekly Standard's Mary Katharine Ham:
I like her, and I'm all for "tellin' it like it is" and all that, but Sarah Palin needs a speechwriter, not a direct mail writer.
Whether or not Palin's claim contributed to resistance against Democratic health care reform is beside the point (and there's some evidence it did).
It just wasn't true. Palin might have won a short-term battle on the issue, but her ethos is largely built on "tellin' it like it is".
If she tells it like it ain't too often, that's not going to last.
