From the "Lies, damned lies and…" file.

The results of a new Gallup poll aimed at measuring the effectiveness of the Republican riots at health care town halls is being reported and fairly widely repeated thusly...

Independents by 2-1, 35%-16%, say they are more sympathetic to the protesters now.

That, of course, is a lie.

It may be that among the limited class of independents whose opinions have shifted in response to the activities of the tea birthers, twice as many are expressing sympathy for the shouters. Independents as a whole though, by nearly 2-1, 65%-35%, do not "say they are more sympathetic to the protestors now."

A good many of those, I'd imagine, are like myself. Having never had any sympathy for the willfully ignorant, I can't have any less. Regardless of their reasons, though, the truth is the exact opposite of the report.

Yep.

This sounds un-American to me...

...disruptive protests are turning town hall meetings into shouting matches and drowning out discussion over what is and isn't in health care plans in the House and Senate.

Worth repeating.

Hell, worth memorizing. Steven Perlstein...

The recent attacks by Republican leaders and their ideological fellow-travelers on the effort to reform the health-care system have been so misleading, so disingenuous, that they could only spring from a cynical effort to gain partisan political advantage. By poisoning the political well, they’ve given up any pretense of being the loyal opposition. They’ve become political terrorists, willing to say or do anything to prevent the country from reaching a consensus on one of its most serious domestic problems.

Which is why I always say sometimes that...

From the "Entrepreneurship for Progressives" file.

Hunter...

Go to a townhall meeting. Tell people you're selling Hitler insurance, and for a hundred bucks each you can assure them that Hitler will not come into their home that night to give them an anal probe. Trust me, these people aren't too bright -- you'll make a fortune. If Hitler does return and starts probing people, declare yourself an investment bank and ask for a ten trillion dollar bailout.

Heh™.

When she's right, she's right.

Far right. Caribou Barbie opines…

The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.

No doubt about it, such a system is definitively evil. Happily, such a system hasn't been proposed, isn't being proposed and, while I've seen many events occur that could 'never' happen, is unlikely to a degree of certainty approaching absolute to ever be proposed.

Spreading fear and inflaming the Republican rioters by claiming that such a proposal is under consideration may, in fact, be downright evil in and of itself, though there is the stupidity defense to be considered.

Hat tip to John Cole.