"The majority of voters are against ObamaCare. The GOP would LOVE to stand alone on Capital Hill, flogging polls showing America agrees with them. Obama is even dumber than I had come to believe if he throws the GOP is this briar patch."

Actually, it is inaccurate to say that the majority of voters are against Obamacare.

1. Most polls are are showing that around 44% (in the 40s, anyhow) disapprove. This is called a plurality, not a majority. On this, you are simply wrong.

2. Obama has yet to articulate a specific plan, so factually speaking there is no ObamaCare.

3. Of the people who disapprove the majority (yes, a real majority) are against things that are not in the plan. People who disapprove because they think, for example, that healthcare reform will force American taxpayers to buy powdered unicorn horns in order to treat the sexual impotency of illegal-immigrant Leprechauns don't actually disapprove of the plan as it exists. You do understand that, don't you? There are no unicorns. There are no Leprechauns. There are no death panels. There is no government takeover.

So, if the GOP really wants to go 100% in defending America against randy, unicorn-horn-fueled, undocumented Leprechauns, I say "Have fun!" And, good luck picking up your credibility when the bill passes and none of these fears come true.

Besides the obvious ghost-written quality of this, and the fact that the footnotes refute the points they are trying to make, did anybody notice how insulting this is to healthcare profesionals? Doctors will have a monetary incentive to use the end-of-life-consultation to force people to effectively choose their death! WTF! That should be what the Dems (and Joan, next time you're on Hardball) should point out.

Apparently SP thinks that if you throw a doc $20 he or she will give the "Is your life really worth living?" speech. Didn't doctors take some kind of oath that would prevent this (for the GOP readers, that was rhetorical...yes they did!)?

Most of the doctors I know would be aghast to hear that Mrs. Palin thinks so poorly of their moral character.

Factually challenged, dishonest, and now insulting to our hard-working physicians.

I don't know if you saw Representative Thaddeus McCotter (R) of Michigan on Hardball earlier this week. McCotter was talking about the Gates case. He opened by referring to Obama's admitted "bias", the bias toward his (Obama's) friend. Skip Gates. Throughout the rest of the interview McCotter dropped the bias-toward-a-friend angle and just spoke of Obama's bias. Obama's bias; Obama admitted he was biased; the President's bias; bias, bias, bias.

You don't think this was calculated to play into the Obama-is-a-racist claims that Rush, Beck, and others has been spouting? Sure it is. McCotter's arguments were laughable and scary at the same time.

It isn't just the GOP talkers on this thing. GOP members of Congress are hip deep in it as well.

No, it is not a case of right=lies, left=truth.

A number of Straussians and neocons see their political calling as saving America from itself. Democracy is dangerous in its exaltation of the masses. The masses are not to be trusted (as they/we are unlearned and vulgar). Simply put, Jeffersonian ideals of democracy are unnatural. Neocons see themselves as protectors of the natural order (with them, of course, at the top of the natural heap).

Simply put, neocons have a view of politics that requires the dissembling that they have become (in)famous for. This is a large scale dissembling, the creation of a noble lie big enough to sustain a framework behind which they can pull strings, philosophize, etc. Their goal is to make the City (political life and community) safe for philosophers (such as themselves).

Old-fashioned GOP conservatives (even somebody like Pat Buchanan) are actually like moderates, liberals, democratic socialists, and others in that they all agree in the reasonableness of the people, the basic (and salutary) possibility of democracy, and basic moral and political equality among people. The lies these people tell (and, as you suggest, all parties tell them) are the small lies ("I did not have sexual relations with that women,") that are meant to bring about success within a democratic system.

So, Straussians and neocons = Noble lies (at the scale of religion) in order to protect America from itself and make it safe for the elite...

Traditional conservatives, liberals, etc. = a belief in democratic possibility and faith in the people, small lies about sex, drugs, and bridges they'll get built.

Both sides lie, but the underlying rationale is very different. In this way of seeing things, Pat Buchanan and Rachel Maddow are closer together than Pat and Bill Kristol.