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August 14, 2009

About to be Glue (if not for Chuck Grassley!)


Grassley Grandma.jpg

“I think the best thing to do is if you want people to think about the end of life, number one, Jesus Christ is the place to start, and after that, in the physical life, as opposed to your eternal life, it ought to be done within the family and considered a religious and ethical issue and not something that politicians deal with,” [Grassley] said. — via WAPO

“There is some fear because in the House bill, there is counseling for end-of-life,” Grassley told a town hall crowd. “And from that standpoint, you have every right to fear. …We should not have a government program that determines if you’re going to pull the plug on grandma.” — via Joan Walsh, Salon

Doing back flips to distance himself from Obama and his own ID as one of the Senate Finance Committee’s health care “gang of six,” Grassley is another one who has done a mind meld with Palin in propagating that right-wing fabrication known as the “death panel.”

This slipping-and-sliding over to the dark side makes yesterday’s widely published wire photo that much more hypocritical to Dems, but a beautiful propaganda showpiece looking rightward — like a peace offering to those wingers popping up like mushrooms at each Grassley stop promising to vote him out if he signs on with Obama on health care.

I don’t know what this Sheryl Prather in the pink asked the Senator during a Wednesday town hall in Adel, Iowa. But then, it’s mostly about the picture, right? With all the smoke this guy has been blowing these past few days, the framing speaks to Grassley telling Sheryl the location of the Republican’s nearest secret underground location.

(image: Steve Pope/A.P.)

  • http://profile.typepad.com/deanor DeanOR

    Not so hard on Chuck. We all exaggerate at times. Haven’t we all at some time or other tried to score a point by telling old people that the government is going to kill them to save money?

  • bernini

    Still on my cultural anthropologists crusade from yesterday: perhaps one’s level of faux health care reform anger is directly proportional to the last time one got laid? Would account for most of the elderly as well as taking in a lot of those mean ol’dudes with serious Ralph Kramdems. Grassley is totally flirting with our lady in pink here, with his pants hiked up to his solar plexus, prominently presenting his holstered mobile device to her…come on, it’s so obvious what is going on. I believe the photo captures the exact moment when Grassley trots out the classic death panel pick up line to seduce her: “I would vote to have you exterminated and then skull f*#k the b’jesus out of you.”

  • jtfromBC

    Looking at this crowd it appears obesity is a real problem, and what about the phenomenal increase of HIV in this demographic…talk about living wills and deaths squads ! ? ! ?

  • Ralph

    Senator (explaining): “Women and children first.”
    Sheryl: “Don’t count your chickens, sonny – you’re on the list too.”

  • g

    I dunno – I’d like to believe that the old gal was calling him on his hypocrisy, telling him to stop with the Death Panel bullshit. But that’s just me.

  • Tena

    I’d like to, too, but I don’t.
    Not the way things about been going. Grassley just killed a very valuable provision of health care reform and we’re all dancing the crazy dance with the crazies, now.

  • http://motherrr.blogspot.com mcmama

    I grew up in Iowa. Most of the people there, whether conservative or liberal, are practical, plain-spoken, and optimistic. Then there’s this other slice of life dominated by pinched, judgmental, genuinely mean people who like to thump their bibles and tell everybody else to go to hell. Grassley represents the meanies, although he occasionally breaks out with a more moderate Iowa opinion.
    It’s impossible to say which group Sylvia Prather belongs to based on the picture, but I’d like to think she’s my kind of Iowan, and she’s telling Grassley to stick his stupid lies up his butt.

  • Tena

    Like I say – I dearly hope you’re right.
    My mother’s family is from northern Kansas, and we used to go back there every summer and I loved those people, too. But I’m not blind to what’s been happening in Kansas.
    It makes me very sad.

  • joy

    Why do I get the feeling that this is the “birthers” trying something new?

  • http://solarray.blogspot.com gmoke

    This picture gives me vertigo. Shot from a low angle up Grassley looks as if he’s leaning back, Prather is leaning in, the people on the steps are also leaning in different directions, and all the angles in the roof structure follow that craziness up into the sky.

  • yg

    i can’t believe this brittle, bitter guy is the same one who broke down and cried when jim jeffords jumped party, switched from republican to indie. cost the republicans the majority in the senate and grassley his chairmanship. sure, he cries when he loses something but doesn’t give a shit about anybody else’s pain.
    did you see keith’s show? grassley, in the past, voted for living will provisions in medicare. newt and palin showed past support for it too. the ridicule that’s going to ensue for the hypocrisy is going to be priceless.
    come 2010 midterms, dems are going to hold up the “death panel” fearmongering, show how republicans twisted commonsense policy and perverted it into paranoia nuttiness and demonstrate how that shows republicans are UNFIT to govern.
    republicans gave up long term credibility for a momentary speed bump. brilliant.

  • steve

    Senator Smoking Grassley.

  • yg

    somebody last night played a clip from this scene. the woman in pink was giving grassley a hard time for not support healthcare reforms!
    keith should have interviewed her.