October 01, 2009 04:50 PM UTC

"1. Don't Get Sick"

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• by: Colorado Pols

A freshman Democratic congressman from Florida shows how two can play the hyperbole game:

Which has, as Politico reports, caused a bit of a nationwide kerfluffle:

The nation has heard plenty of rhetoric about death panels and pulling the plug on granny, and last night, Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) added his own chapter to the death talk, warning Americans that “Republicans want you to die quickly.”

Republicans called on Grayson last night to apologize, and on Wednesday morning, Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) drafted a resolution of disapproval which declared that Grayson’s remarks were “a breach of decorum and degraded the integrity and proceedings of the House.” This resolution comes one week after the House approved a formal resolution disapproving of Rep. Joe Wilson’s infamous “you lie!” outburst during President Barack Obama’s joint address to Congress…

Clearly, the GOP has incentive to twist the knife. Grayson is a freshman who won Florida’s highly competitive Orlando-based 8th District with 52 percent of the vote in 2008. He’s given to speaking his mind, and Republicans are intent on making him pay for it at the polls.

But Republicans made “death panels” a household phrase, and Democrats say there’s a strong whiff of hypocrisy in the furor over Grayson’s remarks.

Honestly, Democrats can’t get too indignant about Republicans crying shame on Alan Grayson, lest their well-established case against Republicans for spreading irresponsible lies begin to suffer credibility-wise. Lefties rallying to this guy for going as over-the-top as, say, Sarah “Death Panel” Palin herself should probably think about how it all looks in aggregate to Middle America–nonsense answered in kind. We’re not sure how helpful that really is.

But Republicans, who spent the summer turning the debate over health care reform into an historic festival of raving fringe insanity, should shut the hell up too. Hyperbole sucks, doesn’t it?