The 40M-plus member organization has pulled the plug on a series of healthcare meetings slated for north Texas after the "death panel" and "Obama wants to kill granny" crowd of crazies disrupted a meeting in Dallas. AARP, which is a supporter of overhauling healthcare, plans a multimillion-dollar ad push that may reach (irritate?) some reform opponents.
The Fox News Channel is on AARP's media schedule, but my hunch is that some Foxers will lunge for the remote rather than hear the facts about the Obama plan, such as no mandatory euthanasia requirement.
There is a ray of hope. Some mainstream Republicans are now speaking out against the lies used to scare the pants off older people about healthcare.
Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski took a shot at former Governor Sarah Palin's nonsense talk about death panels. "It does us no good to incite fear in people by saying there’s these end of life provisions, these death panels," said Murkowski during an event in Alaska. She is offended by the death panel terminology because it absolutely isn't in the bill. Murkowski sees no reason to "gin up fear in the American public by saying things that are not included in the bill."
Georgia’s Johnny Isakson simply called Palin's death panel notion "crazy." Both politicos have plenty to oppose in Obama’s bill. That is their right. They deserve applause for attempting to inject truth and civility into the debate. The country would be well served if more high-profile Republicans spoke the truth about Obama’s plan.
Imagine if President George Bush II rose to the occasion and gave a speech about the importance of sticking to the facts when discussing healthcare. He used to called himself a "healer" and a "uniter."
Bush's time has come.