Thanks to Sarah Palin [updated]

Andy McCarthy dissents from this NRO editorial. Excerpts:

I don't see any wisdom in taking a shot at Governor Palin at this moment when, finding themselves unable to defend the plan against her indictment, Democrats have backed down and withdrawn their "end-of-life counseling" boards. Palin did a tremendous service here. Opinion elites didn't like what the editors imply is the "hysteria" of her "death panels" charge. Many of those same elites didn't like Ronald Reagan's jarring "evil empire" rhetoric. But "death panels" caught on with the public just like "evil empire" did because, for all their "heat rather than light" tut-tutting, critics could never quite discredit it. ("BusHitler," by contrast, did not catch on with the public because it was so easily refuted.)

[. . .]

In suggesting it's hyperbole to say death panels are — or were — in the bill, the editors engage in a little hysteria of their own, describing the function of such panels as "deciding whose life has sufficient value to be saved." But few people worried about death panels think the process will be anything so crude. It will be what Mark Steyn described in his column this weekend: the bureaucrats won't pull the plug on you; they will gradually restrict your access to various forms of treatment while you wither away prematurely.

Exactly.

And by the way, it seems to me that two aspects of ObamaCare have been conflated into one. "Death panels," a.k.a. rationing boards, which are absolutely essential to government-run healthcare, are distinct from the end-of-life counseling sessions provision that was recently dropped from the Senate bill.

Rationing will be administered by committees of ethicists and other 'experts' and can't be dropped from any version of the bill that includes a public option. This confusion isn't surprising since the two aspects lead in the same direction.

*Updated to add the following from Mark Steyn: Give me liberty or give me death panels

What matters is the concept of a government "panel". Right now, if I want a hip replacement, it's between me and my doctor; the government does not have a seat at the table. The minute it does, my hip's needs are subordinate to national hip policy, which in turn is subordinate to macro budgetary considerations. For example:

Health trusts in Suffolk were among the first to announce that obese people would be denied hip and knee replacements on the NHS.

The ruling was part of an attempt to save money locally.

The operative word here is "ruling". You know, like judges. You're accepting that the state has jurisdiction over your hip, and your knee, and your prostate and everything else. And once you accept that proposition the fellows who get to make the "ruling" are, ultimately, a death panel. Usually, they call it something nicer - literally, like Britain's National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE).

Are Andy McCarthy and Mark Steyn always right? I think they might be. From Mark:

And finally I don't think this is any time for NR to be joining the Frumsters and deploring the halfwit vulgarity of déclassé immoderates like Palin. This is a big-stakes battle: If we cross this bridge, there's no going back. Being "moderate" is not a good strategy. It risks delivering the nation to the usual reach-across-the-aisle compromise that will get Democrats far enough across the bridge that the Big Government ratchet effect will do the rest.

After my weekend column recounted the experience of a recent British visitor of mine, I received an email from a gentleman in Glasgow who cannot get an x-ray for his back - because he has no sovereignty over his back. His back is merely part of the overall mass of Scottish backs, to which a government budget has been allocated, but alas one which does not run to x-rays.

Government "panels" making "rulings" over your body: Acceptance of that concept is what counts.

*Update: See Ruby Slippers for more thoughts on the Palin effect.

Comments welcome.
Linked by Michelle Malkin (buzzworthy)
Most recent posts here.