Pulling The Plug Redux
by digby
You’ll probably be hearing Republicans screeching like enraged Gorgons over this memo allegedly written by Democrats that says they’re going to be suffocating Grandma.
Unsurprisingly, it likely that it’s BS:
A senior Democratic leadership aide told TPMDC in an interview the memo, obtained and printed by Politico and leading the Drudge Report this afternoon a few days ahead of the health care vote Sunday, is “a hoax.” [READ THE MEMO HERE] “We have checked with every Democratic office, no one has ever seen it. It did not come out of a Democratic office,” the aide said, adding that media outlets printing the memo have not checked with leadership offices if the memo is authentic. A second Democratic leadership aide confirmed the memo was not sent by the Democrats. A third Democratic aide also said the memo is fake, citing the “draft” stamp and saying no one uses such things.
Sometimes I think the “Rathergate” scandal permanently damaged the brains of the conservative movement. They have been obsessed with forged memos ever since. Last time they insisted that the Democrats had forged one, which turned out not to be true. This time, it appears that they forged one themselves. (Of course, it may turn out that some idiot staffer wrote the thing, but I’m doubtful anyone’s that stupid, even the Democrats.)
Still, you can’t blame them. They have a network and a pipeline devoted to passing around lies, and their main approach to dealing with health care will be a continuous round of ever more ridiculous lies about the Democrats destroying Medicare. It’s smart politics for them. Their only growing demographic is the over 65s.
If I thought the Democrats were devious and talented enough to pull it off, I might encourage them to put social security on the agenda just so they can force Republicans to turn themselves inside out trying to keep this constituency happy while maintaining the fiction that they are fiscal conservatives.
But I don’t think we can chance it. The Dems would likely only succeed in destroying social security and their reputation for protecting the safety net for the elderly.
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