Sarah ‘Palinocchio’ Wins Lie Of The Year For “Death Panels”
Now that 2009 is slowly, finally coming to an end, Sarah Palin is getting her comeuppance in the inevitable end-of-year lists. Sort of. Yesterday Politifact.com, a fact-checking website, selected “death panels” as its number one lie of the year: “Of all the falsehoods and distortions in the political discourse this year, one stood out from the rest.”
Last night on Countdown fill-in host Lawrence O’Donnell picked up on the dubious award and tried his best to create and entirely new catchphrase: Palinocchio. Probably this will be both less catchy and damaging, but points for trying! Palin apparently beat out the birthers and Joe Wilson, and Glenn Beck who once asserted that the government was putting sterilants in the drinking water to control population. So yes, the list was a long one this year.
O’Donnell also notes (via Politifact) that the phrase could be found in over 6,000 news reports in August and September alone begging the question who’s more at fault here Palin for making it up or the media for running with it. Anyway O’Donnell wants to know how on earth Palin is going to spin her way out of this! How indeed. Short answer: quite easily, no doubt, and if she’s feeling creative probably with an entirely new term, which will be coming to her Facebook page soon.
33 comments
marigrace says: Although “death panels” were a myth, the fact the Healthcare bill has contents ordering that doctors should be punished; who order higher costing treatments for those on Medicare, could potentially be a huge detriment to the lives of the elderly.
The “death panel” cannard is due to 2 factors: Those exact words were not employed, and the moment that aspect of the legislation was exposed it was removed from the bill. NOW the people can go after Palin for “Lying” because “It is not in the bill”, and “It never said that” are technically accurate.
TBDave says: The Politifact website comes from the folks at the St Petersburg Times. If you made a list of the country’s newspapers with the most blatant liberal bias, the SPT would be in the top five.
ChrisNH says: Of course it’s being called a ‘lie’ by people who are fawning all over this bill Lewinsky-like. How can it be called a ‘lie’ if the bill hasn’t even been seen by more than a couple people and if it won’t even take effect until 2014? Fine…call it a ‘lie’ then (if you can). But no one can call it a lie three years before this abortion even starts taking effect.
Yeah. I kind of think the 6000+ instances of one phrase from a Facebook blog is a much larger culprit, than somebody simply misunderstanding something they hadn’t read.
same2u says: Sarah Palin wouldn’t appeal so strongly to Christian conservatives if she didn’t lie out her ass in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.
Another ludicrous media-generated story so the media would have something to talk about since real, actual news is so difficult.
That said, the entire “death panel” thing never existed. I see this as a misread of a clause paying doctors to have end of life consultations with patients. I wish there has been such a thing when my step-dad passed away. We had to drag the various options out of the doctors (hospice, home care, permanent hospitalization, etc.)
Did she “lie?” No. She overstated and misinterpreted the language. Once she said it, it picked up steam all on its own.
The idea of a “Lie of the Year” award from the media, which lies constantly is about as goofy as it gets.
@ChrisNH – Actually, the bills have now been read and reviewed by lots of people and that is one reason the Death Panel nonsense went away. It was when they had not been read that a lot of the nonsense was sprouting up. And
@MartiniShark – “technically accurate” is both redundant and a non-sequitur. Accuracy is not a technical matter. Something is either accurate or not.
@marigrace – the bill actually does not limit or eliminate Medicare coverage. It does try to eliminate duplicated tests, but does not prevent any medical treatment. This is another fear myth.
Here are real problems with the bill:
-It vests in one person the power to determine if an insurance plan is good enough and enables that person to levy “fines.”
-It still contains a mandate to have health insurance, and that mandate is simply wrong.
-The bill punishes those who have good health care plans by threatening taxes on those plans.
-No tort reform. Without tort reform, the rest is pointless.
At the end of the day, this piece of legislation has been surrounded by myths and lies from BOTH sides to the point that even if it does pass and become law, it will be ineffective.
straitshooter says: G=DW
tjl says: Palin defenders are the reason why the rest of the world hates us. And why we are so far behind the rest of the world in math, science, and literature. You people are dumbing down this country. It’s a damn shame.
Glynnis MacNicol wrote:
…and Glenn Beck who once asserted that the government was putting sterilants in the drinking water to control population.
I dare you, Editor Glynnis, to prove that Beck said that the government actually DID it.
Beck ACCURATELY relates that an Obama appointee — John Holdren — who along with errant 70’s era futurists Paul and Annie Ehrlich authored a policy volume called Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment — actually proposed such a “solution” to overpopulation.
“The third approach to population limitation is that of involuntary fertility control. Several coercive proposals deserve discussion, mainly because some countries may ultimately have to resort to them unless current trends in birth rates are rapidly reversed by other means. …
“Adding a sterilant to drinking water or staple foods is a suggestion that seems to horrify people more than most proposals for involuntary fertility control. Indeed, this would pose some very difficult political, legal, and social questions, to say nothing of the technical problems. No such sterilant exists today, nor does one appear to be under development. To be acceptable, such a substance would have to meet some rather stiff requirements: it must be uniformly effective, despite widely varying doses received by individuals, and despite varying degrees of fertility and sensitivity among individuals; it must be free of dangerous or unpleasant side effects; and it must have no effect on members of the opposite sex, children, old people, pets, or livestock …
So, you’re reading about how horrifying a sterilant in the water would be. End of story, right? No, because then the Ehrlichs and Holdren explore ways in which the idea might be “acceptable”!
Here’s how ridiculous PolitiFact is: They take 1,404 words to untangle the Ehrlichs and Holdren out of Beck’s allegation that sterilants in drinking water was “proposed,” and then declare Beck’s “Pants on Fire”!
But PolitiFact has nothing on Editor Glynnis, who couldn’t even be bothered to fact check (there’s that phrase again!) the source of her daily shot of anti-Palin smack.
How are you going to spin your way out of that one, Ms. MacNicol? Are you going to delete parts of your thread like your pal Colby Hall does? Better not try –unlike yesterday, when I discovered Colby altered his story, I have a screencap of your lie.
Have a nice day, Ms. MacNicocchio!
Ted says: Same2u – Jesus told her to lie…and that makes it okay.
LNSmithee – You got it exactly wrong but you are such a Glenn Beck teabagging suck up you wouldn’t recognize truth if it bit Sarah Palin right on her long nose…hey, Palinocchio does have a ring to it now doesn’t it.
straitshooter says: Glynnis, would you mind providing us with a list of any other public figures who deserve comeuppance? I didn’t realize this was a point of fact.
Snipzor says: Damn, I came too late to witness the “OUTRAGE!!!!” of Palin’s death panel quote being lie of the year. Oh yeah, she did say ‘death panels’, stop defending this idiotic women, and don’t claim Politifact has a liberal bias because that’s a bullshit excuse just to make yourself feel better.
“…will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,’ whether they are worthy of health care.”
Ah yes, LNS should possibly read the book Holdren (And a bunch of other people) wrote instead of slandering it. They mind find out it has to do with ethical debates, and that none of the scientists who wrote it endorse or denounce any of the arguments within the book. Then again, I shouldn’t expect more from a bunch of right-wingers who are proud of being anti-science.
Ted wrote:
LNSmithee – You got it exactly wrong but you are such a Glenn Beck teabagging suck up you wouldn’t recognize truth if it bit Sarah Palin right on her long nose…hey, Palinocchio does have a ring to it now doesn’t it.
What parallel universe are you living in where vulgar ad hominems trump facts?
Think I’ve got it “exactly wrong”, Ted? Prove that Glenn Beck, as MacNicocchio wrote, “once asserted that the government was putting sterilants in the drinking water to control population.” I’m immune to name-calling. You want to defeat me, you’ll have to do it with facts! Got any?
roxsteady says: Some of you are really pathetic! Last April, Alaska held some kind of health fair and one of the things she initiated was exactly what she would later refer to as Death Panels. Now, if you don’t watch Countdown or Rachel Maddow you wouldn’t know this. I know damn well fox never reported this. She’s got those of you who defend her looking like idiots once again. Just deal with the fact that this woman is a moron and a hypocrite! Perhaps you have more in common with her than you think.
roxsteady says: It’s clear that some of you don’t even know what the “end of life counseling” actually was. Right now, insurance companies offer this service so, the bill would simply have offered to pay for it as part of the new healthcare package. It’s not mandatory. It simply would now be paid for if you wanted the service. Now, how is that a death panel? Asses!
Snipzor wrote:
Ah yes, LNS should possibly read the book Holdren (And a bunch of other people) wrote instead of slandering it. They mind find out it has to do with ethical debates, and that none of the scientists who wrote it endorse or denounce any of the arguments within the book. Then again, I shouldn’t expect more from a bunch of right-wingers who are proud of being anti-science.
Hey, Snippy: Go to the link to PolitiFact and read how they try (and fail, IMHO) to defend the Ehrlichs and Holdren (I guess three people could be “a bunch”). When they wrote of the “draconian” (their word) measures like sterilants and one-child policies as “unpalatable” and describe the then-current situation as not requiring them, they without fail left the door open to the inaction of such policies if things got bad enough.
Here’s another example, quoted by PolitiFallacy in its twisted slam on Beck (bold mine):
“To date, there has been no serious attempt in Western countries to use laws to control excessive population growth, although there exists ample authority under which population growth could be regulated. For example, under the United States Constitution, effective population-control programs could be enacted under the clauses that empower Congress to appropriate funds to provide for the general welfare and to regulate commerce, or under the equal-protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Such laws constitutionally could be very broad. Indeed, it has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society. Few today consider the situation in the United States serious enough to justify compulsion, however.”
I would venture to guess that there are plenty of other people qualified for the position “Director of White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.” who would eliminate the notion of sterilants and/or reproductive restrictions as unacceptable as, say, eugenics. But in a nation of three hundred million people and untold thousands of degreed science experts, Obama picked the guy who co-wrote the above.
RazorsEdge says: @Keeva
Technically I would accept that you are correct on your Medicare claim. The Bill cutting out Medicare “advantage” payments (except if you live in Florida. Looking like other 49 states taxpayers will get to pay for them) causes some problems however.
NY Times reported this year that a growing large percetage of Doctors and Hospitals are not opted into to Medicare because they receive a lower reimbursement from Medicare (govt). Those opted in either are participating or non-participating. Non-participating can choose to charge more to patient or the gap of what they charge and what Medicare reimburses them for.
The millions of those seniors on Medicare advantage that get their insurance cut will very possibly need to find other doctors that are enrolled into Medicare. 40 Milion seniors currently enrolled into Medicare
If the “doctor fix” becomes a reality, then very possible more Medicare doctors and hospitals would opt out of Medicare.
Here’s the real problem…There are 78 million baby boomers that this year are beginning early retirement. Meaning 78 million baby boomers will begin to enroll into Medicare in 3 years. They will do this for 20 years after that.
That’s why the claim that Medicare funded and un-funded liabilitis will cause Medicare to go bankrupt 2018-2025.
Anticiapted number of enrolled Medicare participants 60-65 million by then with decreasing number of doctors/hospitals accepting Medicare. Medigap will help with loss of Medicare Advantage (why AARP endorsed) but you still have the problem with nearly doubling Medicare rolls with decreasing number of care givers.
Hey, roxie: Here’s a July 2009 quote from President Obama himself regarding “end-of-life counseling” that you haven’t heard unless you listen to Laura Ingraham, who has the audio clip of BHO saying it before it was mysteriously excised from CBS News reports (bold mine):
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: “We know we spend a huge amount of money that last year of life. More and more people are gonna say, I don’t want people poking tubes, and, you know, uh, doing all sorts of…stuff. The most important thing we can do on end of life care right now is to make sure that we are empowering everybody to make decisions for themselves about how they want to deal with the end of life and to encourage people to look at hospices as a legitimate option for dealing with these issues.
As inelegant a phrase as “death panel” is, don’t misunderstand what it means. It’s not a reference to end-of-life counseling for the benefit of the patient — it is counseling promoted by the Federal government for the purpose of limiting the cost TO the government of health care for elderly people who might otherwise just pass away. Why is that so important? Because rationing of care IS universal health care, where this is all headed for. Ask Senator Harkin … or, better yet, ask ME.
Snipzor says: LNS you bloody idiot, do you even know what ethics is? No you don’t, you don’t even know what the book is about, and you’ve only read snippets of it. In fact, you can barely read snippets properly. The paragraph you quoted holds no real position (Note the use of the word ‘could’, or the lack of urgency within the text), and only states that extreme measures can technically be constitutionally valid. If you knew shit about the book, you would even realize that it is about the worst case scenario. Something that is made explicit in the opening statement of the book.
Why am I even bothering with a scientific illiterate? You bitch about how there is no data for climate change (Despite how there is a ton of it) while never presenting real data or peer reviewed journals. You bitch about the validity of Nature, and post no alternative. You are a pathetic intellectually dishonest human being LNS.
Ted says: LNS – if you bothered just once to do a simple search on the internet you’d discover how pathetically wrong you are. By the way, look up “fact” in the dictionary you boob.
Ted wrote:
LNS – if you bothered just once to do a simple search on the internet you’d discover how pathetically wrong you are. By the way, look up “fact” in the dictionary you boob.
Uh huh. Y’know, Ted, I’m not the only one who can cut-and-paste or provide links. You can do that, too. You could educate me, prove to me that I’m “pathetically wrong” the same I proved MacNicocchio was lying about Glenn Beck.
But you won’t. Because you can’t.
I’ve been through this sort of schtuff before. I prove my case, and somebody else says I’m dead wrong. I say, “Prove I’m wrong,” and they say, “I’m not going to help you, find the truth yourself” because they already did a search, found out I was on solid ground, and they can’t admit I’m right.
I will admit I’m wrong if I am. Your mission…prove it.
@Ted: I’ve only seen Beck in clips, but in those clips and on the credible sites debunking him, I’ve only seen reference to him talking about drinking water in relation to a White House appointee’s prior writings.
Now in the course of discussing the appointee’s beliefs, he would’ve naturally theorized about whether they still held such thoughts, but I’m no Beck fan, yet I have to classify the whole drinking water thing as just another example of his patented way of “asking questions”.
Snippy snippily wrote:
LNS you bloody idiot, do you even know what ethics is? No you don’t, you don’t even know what the book is about, and you’ve only read snippets of it. In fact, you can barely read snippets properly. The paragraph you quoted holds no real position (Note the use of the word ‘could’, or the lack of urgency within the text), and only states that extreme measures can technically be constitutionally valid. If you knew shit about the book, you would even realize that it is about the worst case scenario. Something that is made explicit in the opening statement of the book.
Alrighty, then! By that logic, I could detail a plan by which — in the “worst case scenario” — the Federal government could Constitutionally solve an American famine by reducing population by, say, tear-gassing cities with — shall we say — unproductive citizens. Those poor folks would be put out of their misery and they wouldn’t be taking any more of the precious food that is so valuable to the productive population.
Horrifying? Au contraire! I’m just making a suggestion about what could be done in such a situation, I’m not saying I’m in favor of it. And it probably won’t happen anyway, so who cares?
By that measure, I can see how a defense of instituting a one-child policy in the United States of America is AOK to just speculate about. I mean, it’s not like there’s any other large Countries tHat force abortIoNs, wouldn’t you Agree?
According to MSNBC, Sarah Palin is a bumbling idiot that no one takes seriously. Yet they seem obsessed with her, to the point of featuring her nightly. If she’s so inconsequential, why the obsession? If Keith Olbermann wasn’t such a gay wad, I’d think he had a crush on her.
ImNotBlue says: tjl says:
December 22, 2009 at 12:03 pm
Palin defenders are the reason why the rest of the world hates us.
Yes, when Chavez was insulting Obama the other day, I’m sure that’s what he really meant… it was Palin’s fault.
Yikes.
roxsteady says:
December 22, 2009 at 1:00 pm
Some of you are really pathetic! Last April, Alaska held some kind of health fair and one of the things she initiated was exactly what she would later refer to as Death Panels.
Evidence?
Now, if you don’t watch Countdown or Rachel Maddow you wouldn’t know this. I know damn well fox never reported this.
You do? Do you watch FOX, so you’d know… are do you really mean you “assume” they never reported this?
roxsteady says:
December 22, 2009 at 1:13 pm
End of life counseling is not the same as, “We’ve done enough to treat you, and judging by your age and value to society, your treatment is done.” That’s what they’ve got over in Britain… that’s a death panel… and we don’t want it.
@Keeva
Re-read my entire post, because the previous items make “technically accurate” sensible.
Just curious, what do you call the refusal of life-saving medications based on expenditures? In Britain they do not provide the medications to women that help battle breast cancer because they are too costly.
She just resurrected her death panel claims in tweets today:
“NOW w/the Prez “threatening” &Congress “rushing” is when we MUST pay more attention than ever 2what this HealthCare Takeover is all about…
…merged bill may b unrecognizable from what assumed was a done deal:R death panels back in?what’s punishment 4not purchasing mandated HC?” –http://twitter.com/SarahPalinUSA
Ted says: LNS – Some news that might disturb you. Uh, you haven’t proven squat except that you might enjoy pulling “facts” out of your ass.
Ted wrote:
LNS – Some news that might disturb you. Uh, you haven’t proven squat except that you might enjoy pulling “facts” out of your ass.
You’re clearly confused, Ted. I don’t have to prove anything to you.
I stated the truth: Glenn Beck has never “asserted that the government was putting sterilants in the drinking water to control population,” as Editor Glynnis MacNicocchio alleged. NEVER.
I gave you a link to what we know Beck DID say. It’s up to you — and Glynnis — to prove that he did say it. But you won’t because you can’t because he never said it. And neither of you have the guts to admit it.
Hey, Facebook User: Palin is right … again. The beast is back. Go to page 1,001 of the 2074-page monstrosity and there it is: The Independent Medicare Advisory Board, whose stated mission is…
[To]…reduce the per capita rate of growth in Medicare spending…
Sound familliar? Let’s scroll up in the thread and recall what President Obama said about that oh-so-expensive “end of life” care:
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: “We know we spend a huge amount of money that last year of life. More and more people are gonna say, I don’t want people poking tubes, and, you know, uh, doing all sorts of…stuff. The most important thing we can do on end of life care right now is to make sure that we are empowering everybody to make decisions for themselves about how they want to deal with the end of life and to encourage people to look at hospices as a legitimate option for dealing with these issues.
In other words, what supporters of this bill mean to say to people who wish to live as long as they possibly can is: “We’re not going to give you all that technology and all those drugs for the last couple of years of your life to keep you maybe going for another couple of months. It’s too expensive…so we’re going to let you die.”
Ooooh! Was that last quote too harsh? Don’t blame me, I didn’t make it up — Robert Reich, former Clinton Labor Secretary and Obama advisor, said it. He said that in a speech at the University of California back in September 2007, before Obama even ran for President. Don’t believe me? Believe the video. “Death panels” have been in minds like his for years. And now, bureaucrats with an eye focused on the bottom line may decide in the future whether or not you have access to “all that technology and all those drugs” in the future.
Congratulations.
Oh, BTW, Ted — facts are facts regardless of where you get them. Lies are lies even if they come from St. Petersburg, FL, or Glynnis MacNicocchio’s mouth.
Ted says: Oh BTW, or from LNSmithee – the king of lies. You are pathetic and a Glenn Beck ass hat.
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