Senate Twitter Smackdown! Specter and Grassley Get Into It On Twitter

by Zeke Turner | 8:51 am, August 15th, 2009

» 4 comments

townhall600 Looks like Senator Arlen Specter learned a little something from that feisty health care town hall he held last week — at least on Twitter, where rants are at least limited to 140 characters.

Specter’s target: Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, who has emerged as a voice promoting the “death panel” myth. Grassley told an audience in Iowa that they had “every right to fear” and that the country “should not have a government-run plan to decide when to pull the plug on grandma.” Specter was having none of it, and told Twitter he called Grassley to make him stop:

Turns out what Specter really meant is that he left a voicemail:

But still! The punch was thrown. And if you know Chuck Grassley on Twitter, you know he’s not one to back away from a fight:

Not even the liberal press! Look who sounds a little bit like Sarah Palin after all. Actually, this is a neat lesson in semantics: Specter’s tweet clearly put “death panels” in quotes, but the focus was the myths, which he did, indeed, spread (“pull the plug on grandma“, anyone?). The phrase “Death Panels” as introduced by Sarah Palin — she keeps on giving! — has been the buzzphrase used to promote the idea. And boy, has it worked.

So what’s wrong with Specter trying to correct the record via Twitter? Nothing, actually, in light of the myths being spread. Alas, Grassley’s offense-as-defense tactic appears to have worked: Specter later toned down his Twittatude and slunk back to the empty promises for political discourse that we’re used to:

We definitely tip our hat to Specter for having the swagger to call Grassley out on Twitter — very Lance Armstrong of him! — though given it’s limitations, Twitter might not the best place for a productive dialogue on complex subjects. But where is these days.

"pulling the plug on grandma", Arlen Specter, Betsy McCaughey, Chuck Grassley, Death Panel Myth, Death Panels, health care myths, Health Care Reform, Lance Armstrong, Sarah Palin, trash-tweeting, Twitter trash talk

TfT

HA! My props go to Grassley for calling out the liberal media. Spector twitted (tweeted?) first, but he had to tweet a second time to correct his first tweet….I give him props for correcting his own misstatement, but that’s about all I give Spector props for.
Rachel Sklar

Linguistically, there was nothing incorrect about Specter’s first two tweets; as for the content, I think that warning darkly about “pulling the plug on Grandma” constitutes spreading “death panel” myths. Origin/meaning of comment is clear.
Randy M

Grassley supported government intervention in the Terri Schiavo case and, I believe from his past statements, against abortion in all cases even if it is a choice between the mother and the baby. So actually he is more than willing to set up so called Death Panels and take away the individual and families end of life decisions.
Zeke Turner

Grassley was probably most upset that Specter put “death panel” in quotes. Even if he said ‘pull the plug on grandma,’ I don’t blame him for wanting to get a correction after Specter put Sarah Palin’s words in his mouth. Plus, this debate is too important to take place over Twitter. Pretty under-handed and cowardly move by Specter.