RNC Chair Michael Steele, a man who doesn't know what kind of health-care insurance he and his family has and can't decide whether or not Medicare should be cut or not, has cut a new ad on health care that isn't even in the same solar system as honest (via Dave Weigel):
Steele calls for "no cuts in medicare," even though just yesterday he was saying Medicare cuts were "back on the table." This is a longstanding conflict for Steele, who said Medicare shouldn't be cut in his Washington Post op-ed even though his Senate platform in 2006 called for ... cutting Medicare.
The ad also says that it should "be illegal to ration health care based on age" -- which isn't in the bill, and that he wants to prevent government from having "any role in end of life care," even though the only role that was envisioned was simply that Medicare would cover voluntary end-of-life counseling. This was apparently mailed with with bill citations meant to give Steele's lies an air of authority in the hopes that lazy reporters might not fact-check his claims.
Just a thought: In a campaign between two or three political candidates, it's a lot easier to hold this kind of dishonesty to account, because the press can focus on the individuals who are lying. In this kind of partisan political debate involving both parties, there's a lot more pressure to be "evenhanded" and not simply say that Republicans are just making stuff up, regardless of whether or not they're making stuff up.
-- A. Serwer
