I don’t particularly like Palin, but the only real transgression here was in calling the decision-making bodies “death panels” instead of some lovely euphemism like the UK health service’s “National Institute of Comparative Effectiveness” or NICE, which decides who is eligible for what treatment. Palin’s essentially right that panels will be formed to decide whether or not elderly people, for example, get treatments that will prolong their life a few extra years. According to the CBO, the bill currently under consideration in the Senate “would establish an Independent Payment Advisory Board, which would be required, under certain circumstances, to recommend changes to the Medicare program to limit the rate of growth in that program’s spending. Those recommendations would go into effect automatically unless blocked by subsequent legislative action.” Oh, well. Who can argue with that? It all sounds very pleasant. In practice, I suspect it will all be a lot more sinister.

“…my beef is not so much with Palin as with the relentless packagers and marketers and myth-makers who plucked her from obscurity and are intent, with her collusion, on making her into some kind of Great White Hope for the Republican Party.”

She’s the hope of conservatives everywhere, and that has nothing to do with marketers and myth-makers. What do you think gets crowds to camp out overnight just to have her sign a book? What has drawn thousands everywhere she’s spoken? Not a myth, that’s for sure. She’s the real deal – at last: principled, smart, humble, wise, with the heart of a true public servant. A bit more polish, a bit more facetime with the American public, and I could see her in the White House, please God.