(Paglia weighs in)
I simply do not understand the drift of my party toward a soulless collectivism. This is in fact what Sarah Palin hit on in her shocking image of a ‘death panel’ under Obamacare that would make irrevocable decisions about the disabled and elderly. When I first saw that phrase, headlined on the Drudge Report, I burst out laughing. It seemed so over the top! But on reflection, I realized that Palin’s shrewdly timed metaphor spoke directly to the electorate’s unease with the prospect of shadowy, unelected government figures controlling our lives. A death panel not only has the power of life and death but is itself a symptom of a Kafkaesque brave new world where authority has become remote, arbitrary and spectral. And as in the Spanish Inquisition, dissidence is heresy, persecuted and punished.”
I thought Palin got it exactly right. Instead of backing off the use of the phrase “death panels” (as some people even on the right are insisting we should do)—it is time to double down and hang this phrase on ObamaCare’s neck. People need to understand exactly what is at stake, and exactly where Obama’s team is coming from.