WWGOPD?

Just to make an obvious point: If the parties were reversed and the GOP were the non-right-wing party confronted with Paul Ryan's budget, Republicans wouldn't respond by saying, "Democrats want to change Medicare for people under 55." They wouldn't respond by saying, "Democrats want to eliminate Medicare as we know it for people under 55." They'd just say, flat out: This plan abolishes Medicare. They wouldn't asterisk it, footnote it, or qualify it in any way. They wouldn't take great pains to avoid suggesting that current seniors need to be worried -- they'd work like hell to make sure current seniors were worried.

We make lists of the various Republicans who embrace (or refrain from embracing) birtherism and climate-change denial and other conspiracies, but one step down from those flagrantly loony notions is the idea that the Obama health care law was a "government takeover" of medicine. Can you name a prominent Republican who hasn't uttered that particular lie? And how many prominent Republicans can you name who have said, no, there were never any death panels in the health care bill?

The Republican plan abolishes Medicare. Period. Full stop. That's what every Democrat should say -- because this is war, and if the parties were reversed, that's what every Republican would say.