IS THERE AN ECHO IN HERE?

Charles Grassley:

We [on the Senate Finance Committee] dropped end-of-life provisions from consideration entirely because of the way they could be misinterpreted and implemented incorrectly. Maybe others can defend a bill like the Pelosi bill that leaves major issues open to interpretation, but I can't.

Rudy Giuliani:

People assume these Death Panels will be created. They [Democratic legislators] have created that suggestion in the ambiguity of the legislation.

The Republicans are just so freaking good at this -- tweaking the party line every day, or even every few hours, and lining up one person after another to say precisely the same thing. Today's message: See, we're not crazies who think Democrats deliberately put death panels in the legislation -- we think they could slip in accidentally! And that wasn't yesterday's message at all -- or even the message as of first thing this morning. But now they're all locked in on it.

Republicans couldn't govern their way out of a paper bag, but at message discipline, they leave Democrats in the dust.