My column today looks at the Democrats’ rhetorical morass on health care.

I spotlight the targeting of Chamber of Commerce CEO Tom Donohue by a nutroots website with the gall to call itself “Velvet Revolution” after the citizen-led democracy movements in eastern Europe. The group is on a thuggish fishing expedition akin to the Goon Squad tactics of Team Obama and its supporters during the campaign. Investor’s Business Daily hits the nail on the head in diagnosing the Alinksy tactics of these “thugs in velvet:” “…the biggest problem seems to be the malevolent tone the bounty sets, something that in the current political climate is only growing worse as the Obama administration does nothing to rein it in.”

I also feature the health care horror fables of NYTimes columnist Nick Kristof and President Barack Obama. Propaganda recyclers continue to parrot the John Brodniak plight despite its debunking and crumbling under scrutiny. Guy Benson follows up on the Oregon health plan here.

While they chain us in debt, they accuse us of standing with slavemasters. While they accuse us of inciting violence, they put bounties on the heads of business leaders. While they accuse us fear-mongering, they spread bogus health-care horror stories. Brace yourselves: It’s only going to get worse.

If you are in the Washington DC area on December 15, there’s a Code Red Rally protest on the Capitol against the Demcare beast. Laura Ingraham has details here. Don’t let up.

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The depths of Demcare demagoguery

by Michelle Malkin

Creators Syndicate

Copyright 2009

How low can they go? The desperate Democrat peddlers of a government health care takeover have proclaimed an insurance “Holocaust in America” (Fla. Democrat Rep. Alan Grayson), lambasted conservative health care town hall protesters as “political terrorists” (Indiana Democrat Rep. Baron Hill), sent SEIU thugs to demonstrate outside Democrat Sen. Joe Lieberman’s private residence, and derided senior citizens questioning President Obama’s fuzzy math savings claims (California Democrat Rep. Pete Stark: “I wouldn’t dignify you by peeing on your leg. It wouldn’t be worth wasting the urine.”) Now, Harry Reid is leading them deeper into demagogic mire.

This week, the Senate Majority Leader pummeled opponents with the overworn race card. Following in the mucky footsteps of former President Jimmy Carter (who blamed GOP Rep. Joe Wilson’s objections to Obama’s policy deceptions on a “racism inclination”) and Jesse Jackson (“You can’t vote against healthcare and call yourself a black man”), Reid likened Republicans who object to socialized medicine to slavemasters, enemies of women’s suffrage, and Bull Connor.

Reid’s rhetorical aim was worse than the unhinged Minnesota protester who threw tomatoes at Sarah Palin during a book signing and hit a police officer instead. Splat.

Mustering up as much indignation as his grimly taut face could exhibit, Reid lectured those standing in the way of Demcare: “When this country belatedly recognized the wrongs of slavery, there were those who dug in their heels and said ‘slow down, it’s too early, things aren’t bad enough. When women spoke up for the right to speak up, they wanted to vote, some insisted they simply, slow down, there will be a better day to do that, today isn’t quite right. When this body was on the verge of guaranteeing equal civil rights to everyone regardless of the color of their skin, some senators resorted to the same filibuster threats that we hear today.”

It was the GOP that fought slavery and the Democrat Party that battled to preserve it. It was then-Democrat Strom Thurmond who led the civil rights filibuster that Reid tried to lay on Republicans. And it’s the Democrat Party, not the GOP, that boasts ex-Klansman Sen. Robert Byrd among its senior leaders. But don’t confuse Harry Reid with history while he’s chasing Republicans around with his “RAAAACISM!” stamp.

The more the American public learns about the choice-limiting, debt-exploding, bureaucracy-multiplying health care takeover, the more opposition increases. And the more unhinged the Democrat majority and its supporters get. There is now a $200,000 “bounty” on the head of U.S Chamber of Commerce CEO Tom Donohue. Left-wing activist website “Velvet Revolution” published a want ad with Donohue’s picture on it this week, which solicits information leading to “the arrest and conviction” of the business leader for “opposing progressive initiatives.” The witch hunt is targeting Donohue for his outspoken criticism of the costs and impact of Dems’ health care legislation on small businesses across the country.

Such reckless propaganda accusing opponents of “criminality” isn’t limited to nutroots publications. In the august pages of the New York Times last week, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Nicholas Kristof titled his universal care manifesto, “Are We Going to Let John Die?” Kristof elevated unemployed Oregon sawmill worker John Brodniak, 23, as the Demcare poster child. Reportedly diagnosed with cavernous hemangioma, a neurological condition, Kristof bemoaned: “Without insurance, John has been unable to get surgery or even help managing the pain.”

An emergency room turned Brodniak away, Kristof claims (a practice which is prohibited by federal law). No doctor would treat him, Kristof reported (get your grain of salt ready). Isn’t it “monstrous,” Kristof concludes (hanky alert), “for politicians to avert their eyes, make excuses and deny coverage to innumerable Americans just like John?”

Ready for the punchline? Brodniak not only has coverage through Oregon’s Medicaid program, but has also been a patient at the prestigious Oregon Health and Science University in Portland (a safety-net institution which accepts all Medicaid patients) for the past three weeks – a fact Kristof either deliberately ignored and suppressed from readers or didn’t bother to find out before publishing his screed.

In other words, Brodniak was already being treated and cared for by a top-notch neurologist under our existing health care system when Kristof came along to scream at Congress for letting him die.

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Kristof’s fable follows on the heels of at least two dubious horror stories disseminated by President Obama himself. In September, Obama told of Illinois cancer patient Otto Raddatz, who supposedly died after he was dropped from his insurance plan when his insurer discovered an unreported gallstone the patient hadn’t known about. The truth? He got the treatment he needed in 2005 and died just this year. In another case, Obama claimed, a woman with breast cancer lost her insurance “she forgot to declare a case of acne.” In fact, she failed to disclose a previous heart condition and did not list her weight accurately, but had her insurance restored anyway after intense public lobbying.

But why bother with troublesome facts? In the insatiable pursuit of government control, truth and rationality are the first casualties.