Taranto used the phrase “kill grandma” to describe health care reform in the title to his WSJ best of the web column (which his column is most assuredly not part of) yesterday. Maybe he was using it as a term of art. It still helps to feed and fuel the excessive ignorance, and often misplaced anger, over an issue that few seem to understand (in either direction.)
As for Taranto’s other point, it is a bit astounding — and a little hard to believe. As he notes:
The other day Trudy Rubin, a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, penned a column called “Taliban’s Unwitting Assistants.” Her subject was ObamaCare:
Are some Democratic legislators who are squabbling over health care secret supporters of the Taliban? Are some Republican legislators in cahoots with Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?
I’m dead serious when I ask those questions, as we pass another anniversary of 9/11. President Obama must make critical decisions this fall about policies toward Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran–decisions forced on him early in his term because of wrongheaded policies by the previous administration. . . .
A U.S. president who fails on his signature issue–health care–won’t have the strength and public support to deal with new challenges by Islamists. He will be seen at home and abroad as seriously weakened. Yet neither party seems much bothered by this threat. . .
Now that is some twisted reasoning. Someone on what appears to be the left going toe to toe with the far right in terms of producing some of the most contrived, twisted, contorted yet otherwise straight faced reasonings imaginable….