WHO YOU GONNA BELIEVE -- US OR YOUR LYING EARS?

According to CNN yesterday, Senator John Cornyn was pressing for repeal of health care reform:

Republican Senate candidates are being instructed Tuesday to promote the party's health care policy proposals as they continue to push the "repeal and replace" theme following passage of President Obama's health care reform legislation.

Texas Sen. John Cornyn, who oversees Senate Republican campaign efforts, outlines the key health care talking points in a new memo, "Moving Forward," that was also conveniently sent to some media outlets including CNN....

However, according to ABC today, Senator John Cornyn is wary of repeal of health care reform:

GOP Wary of Health Law Repeal Push in Fall Races

... Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, who chairs the committee responsible for electing GOP senators this fall, said in an interview, "The focus really should be on the misplaced priorities of the administration" and Congress' Democratic leaders....

Asked if he advises Republican Senate candidates to call for repealing the law, Cornyn said: "Candidates are going to test the winds in their own states. ... In some places, the health care bill is more popular than others."

On Tuesday, Cornyn issued a 1,280-word campaign memo that mentioned "repeal" only once. It did not advocate repeal....

That's the same memo CNN quoted -- it's reproduced at the CNN link. So how did CNN ever arrive at the cockamamie notion that Cornyn's a repeal guy?

Er, maybe it was the shout-out to Mitch McConnell in the Cornyn memo?

... As U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) appropriately noted in the Republican radio address this weekend:

"Most people aren't interested in celebrating a bill that makes their lives more complicated, takes more out of their paychecks and puts decisions they're used to making themselves into the hands of federal bureaucrats. Most people aren't celebrating the fact that their insurance premiums will go up. Seniors aren't popping champagne corks at more than a half a trillion dollars in Medicare cuts. And, job creators, already struggling in a down economy, aren't doing any cartwheels over all the mandates and new taxes they'll have to shoulder as a result of this bill."

A shout-out that quoted McConnell's radio address -- an address in which McConnell said this (emphasis added)?

In one of the most divisive legislative debates in modern history, Democrats decided to go the partisan route and blatantly ignore the will of the people. Americans opposed this legislation, and, now they're clamoring to see it repealed and replaced....

The American people [have] been clamoring for a different approach, and that's why Republicans are committed to repealing this bill and replacing it with common-sense solutions that achieve the good things that folks on both sides want to achieve without all the nasty consequences we're already beginning to see.

Repeal and replace. That's what Americans really want, and that's something people far beyond Washington, D.C., will actually want to celebrate.

Er ... um ... maybe McConnell saying "repeal" is like Sarah Palin saying "reload" -- heck, they don't really mean that! It's, um, a pun! No, what's that thing that's the same backwards and forwards? A palindrome! Yeah, that's it!



(Also see Jon Oliver of The Daily Show, about four minutes into this clip.)