Thanks to commenter SpotWeld for this:
In the spring of 2009, a Republican strategist settled on a brilliant and powerful attack line for President Barack Obama’s ambitious plan to overhaul America’s health insurance system. Frank Luntz, a consultant famous for his phraseology, urged GOP leaders to call it a “government takeover.Takeovers are like coups,” Luntz wrote in a 28-page memo. “They both lead to dictators and a loss of freedom.”
PolitiFact editors and reporters have chosen “government takeover of health care” as the 2010 Lie of the Year. Uttered by dozens of politicians and pundits, it played an important role in shaping public opinion about the health care plan and was a significant factor in the Democrats’ shellacking in the November elections.
The phrase is simply not true. Said Jonathan Oberlander, a professor of health policy at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill: “The label ‘government takeover” has no basis in reality, but instead reflects a political dynamic where conservatives label any increase in government authority in health care as a ‘takeover.’ ”
We asked incoming House Speaker John Boehner’s office why Republican leaders repeat the phrase when it has repeatedly been shown to be incorrect. Michael Steel, Boehner’s spokesman, replied, “We believe that the job-killing ObamaCare law will result in a government takeover of health care. That’s why we have pledged to repeal it, and replace it with common-sense reforms that actually lower costs.”
It’s a belief, so not therefore not a lie. They never said it had a factual basis.
The phrase appears more than 90 times on Boehner’s website, GOPLeader.gov. It was mentioned eight times in the 48-page Republican campaign platform “A Pledge to America” as part of their plan to “repeal and replace the government takeover of health care.” The Republican National Committee’s website mentions a government takeover of health care more than 200 times. Conservative groups and tea party organizations joined the chorus. It was used by FreedomWorks, the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute.
In 2010 alone, “government takeover” was mentioned 28 times in the Washington Post, 77 times in Politico and 79 times on CNN. In most transcripts we examined, Republican leaders used the phrase without being challenged by interviewers. For example, during Boehner’s Jan. 31 appearance on Meet the Press, Boehner said it five times. But not once was he challenged about it.
CNN beat Politico in shilling for the GOP in 2010, so that’s an upset right there. I had Politico as the favorite.
Last year Republicans (and allied organizations) won for “death panels”.
Any guesses on The Big Lie in 2011?
Dan
The number 1 concern of the American people is deficits.
morzer
Well, let’s see…
The GOP brought about the economic recovery despite Democratic attempts to derail it with Marxist Fascism led by the Kenyan Usurper-Demagogue Tyrant?
Kay
@Dan:
Not “deficits”. That’s a hard word.
Gubmint SPENDING.
General Stuck
Yes, that will continue to be “the big lie” along with all the others the wingnuts have been barking at the American public. But each day that goes by, more people, even republicans, will notice that junior or daughter will keep coverage on their parents HC plan until age 26, and other folks will realize they have some actual rights concerning their health insurance, with things like portability to changing jobs, and the list goes on. I expect the GOP to still get some mileage out of their bullshit on HCR, but it is less so every day, and by 2012, considerably less, with any luck. The polls on this are moving toward dems, albeit slowly.
Sentient Puddle
Well, we already got them describing the health care bill as “job-killing,” and that’s an adjective that can be easily hooked to pretty much anything. I have no clue what the big legislative battles of this year are going to be, but if I were to take a guess on 2011’s big lie, I’d probably say something to the effect of “The federal deficit will destroy jobs unless we take steps to reign it in.”
ETA: Yes Kay, they’ll probably phrase it as government spending instead.
El Cid
It is also the case that Republicans and the modern right and the hired TeaTard armies can define “government takeover” however the hell they want.
And this isn’t just snark — plenty of times way before health insurance reform was being picked up again after 1993, the fact that there were any federal regulations on health insurance and medical care was decried by the right as soshullist or centralized etc.
There’s a strong strand of thought among certain anti-regulationists (I won’t use the Term Which Must Not Be Mentioned) that any government regulation of business such that it does not privilege the owners, investors, and executives is in effect nationalization.
Redshift
@Kay: This.
kay
@El Cid:
Oh, I agree. This is a huge issue for me.
I even have a proposal. We agree to use the dictionary definition of words before meeting with conservatives. It’s going to be dull and a lot of work, but it’s worth it. Each word. “Define!”
We don’t share a language. They made one up.
GregB
Michelle Obama keeps herself trim by using the blood of white children in her bakery products?
atlliberal
There are too many to only pick one:
Blood Libel will be up there
Republicans winning the election caused the economy to recover (before they even did anything!)
Deficits matter when Democrats are in power but not when republicans are in power. (I almost spit out my coffee watching Cheney yesterday morning mention how Obama is weak because he expanded government and increased the deficit! Projection much?)
Rommie
I’ll guess “State’s Rights” for eleventy thousand. A combination of the re-telling of the Civil War, and getting told NO by the House when the various state budget disasters have governors asking/begging/pleading with DC for help.
nevsky42
I’ll go with “the economy is getting better because the Repubs won”…
(edit) as said above…
RP
I was all set to post a diatribe about the fact that the post title is inaccurate because HCR did, in fact, pass. But then I realized that you probably meant that the conservatives won “Lie of the Year” again. So nevermind.
Elvis Elvisberg
Conservative discourse is quite reminiscent of what conservatives criticized fifteen-twenty years ago, when campus speech codes were the biggest threat to America ever:
The Dangerman
My Prediction: “Obama is responsible for the default” (after the Right blows up the economy).
sven
#1 lie: The Republican Recovery
wheaton pat
“Iran nuclear timetable”
Paris
The improving economy is due to the hard working rich job creators having the confidence to create all those jobs now that part of Congress is under GOP control. Remember, it was the ‘uncertainty’ of undefined and imaginary future taxes and regulations that was making them sit on their hands before.
eric
Easy, GOP to American People: I will go slowly and it won’t hurt.
Kryptik
I’ve got a feeling we’ve already got the winner early in the year, considering the pattern forming. ‘Job-Killing Healthcare bill’ is already rolling on, and precious few seem to actually want to rebut the idea that it actually destroys jobs, and instead focus on the language itself. ‘Why does it have to be Job-Killing? Why can’t it be Job-Destroying? Job-Smashing? Job-Eradicating!’ I mean, yes, Job-Killing is loaded language, but that’s also the least problematic thing about this talking point.
geg6
We’ve already seen it. “The violent and eliminationist rhetoric from the Right has nothing to do with any violence committed against any Democrats” (obviously a paraphrase) when there are literally dozens of examples from the last two years where even many of the perpetrators of such violence have openly admitted to where they got the idea to commit violent acts against the government, Democrats and Democratic supporters.
Digby has a list of just a few of their greatest hits (pun intended): http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/another-isolated-incident.html
debbie
@atlliberal:
I was going to say the next big lie would be that Cheney was correct. Last night in his monologue, Letterman said that Cheney had predicted that Obama would be a one-term president, and then he reminded the audience that Cheney had predicted WMD in Iraq. So Cheney gets my vote.
Alex S.
Hmm, what happened during Clinton’s 3rd year when the economy was improving and it was becoming obvious that he would get re-elected?
danimal
@The Dangerman: Yep. Don’t know the Luntz-tested phrase, but it will be something that ties Obama to the upcoming default gamesmanship.
p.a.
2011- ‘the economic turnaround is the result of the Republican house takeover’ this BIG LIE has the added bonus of being about economics, a topic on which Americans are totally brain-addled.
kay
@geg6:
I would like to say that’s the Big Lie, but it’s too early.
This is frightening: it could be on something that hasn’t happened yet.
cmorenc
Try “UNIVERSAL NIGHTMARE”.
Last night, I was working out in the gym of my local YMCA branch, where they have a bank of four TVs in front of the room, one turned to Fox News, one to CNN, and the other two turned to sports. The sound’s turned off; you need a tuner + earphones to pick that up (which I don’t bring) but the lack of sound makes any visual messaging on Fox, obvious though it often seems, jump out much more vividly than when Beck’s or Hannity’s or Gingrich’s annoying voices compete for your attention.
Last night, Gingrich was giving a spiel on Health Care Reform & Repeal, and there was a small, but brightly colored box projected in the lower left-hand corner reading: “UNIVERSAL NIGHTMARE” (referring of course to health care reform), and one of Gingrich’s focuses was how HCR will take away people’s right to choose doctors. (Of course Gingrich said nothing about how most current pre-HCR health insurance plans either require people to go to a doctor “in-network”, or else often make it arduously difficult to go to one out-of-network and still have costs covered adequately, or even at all, by the insurance).
Projecting “Universal Nightmare” in white letters overlaid on a fire-engine red background block sounds like some more collaborative messaging work from Luntz and Roger Ailes.
Punchy
It’ll almost surely have something to do with reparations. I
t hits almost every bullet point: giving money to lazy Negroz, helping minorities unfairly, Obama buying votes, ACORN, gov’t spending, racism, revisionist history, attack on the Southerns, etc.
burnspbesq
The biggest lie is the meta-lie, i.e., the notion that truth matters in American political life.
joeyess
I predict that the GOP will say something along the line of “preventing the government from destroying Social Security”. Of course, I’m not a toupee wearing, sloe-gin and oj drinking, doughboy phraseologist like Frank Luntz so I could be wrong.
Davis X. Machina
GOP R&D may have finally developed the new product they needed: Crab-bucket syndrome (If I don’t have a job, then you don’t get to have one either; my job sucks, your job must also suck), applied to public workers, and especially to their retirement provisions.
As a product:
It’s non-partisan — in theory. Everybody hates the DMV.
It’s ostensibly race-neutral — but you know who those employees all are, wink, wink, affirmative action….
It’s not obviously neo-Confederate, and should play well in cash-strapped rust-belt states that are otherwise blue or bluish, and in CA.
It’s not part of the culture wars, which are becoming a dead-weight loss for the GOP.
It’s not obviously part of the religious wars, either.
Ressentisment lite — all the rage, without all the baggage.
SensesFail
Michael “I’m-trying-WAY-too-hard-to-sound-like-a-hardcore-conservative-so-hard-in-fact-that-I-really-am-just-a-walking-right-wing-parody” Steel sure is making Jon Stewart’s life difficult.
AuldBlackJack
“isolated incident”
joeyess
@Dan: agreed.
SpotWeld
I’m going to be oil-price panic (in the near term). Lotsa blame on ethenol and offshore drilling bans. Lots of Republicans talking in a room, no real action. But when prices subside lots of back patting.
kay
@joeyess:
Don’t you love that they consulted a phraseologist on health care?
I think that says so much on what passes for analysis on the Right.
I’m all but convinced they refused to debate health care because they don’t know anything about health care, and it’s hard :)
Gary Oftedahl
Wide variety of comments, all interesting, certainly highlighting how our individual belief system drives our interpretations, but as someone who’s worked in health care for over 35 years, and seen the sad state it’s presently in, listening to an interview by Brian Williams with Speaker Boehner, I was floored when he alluded to needing to overturn Obamacare as necessary to preserving the “number one health care system in the world.” If there’s an example of saying something which is untrue, this rises to the top for me–unless he was referring to “number one” in terms of what we spend. There we’re clearly in the lead, but that’s about it for being number 1.
Additionally, for those who are concerned about “government takeover” close to or over 50% of the dollars spent in health care come from the government as a payer in some way. “Keep the government out of my Medicare” is a comment heard at a town hall meeting, which reflects the lack of understanding held by many in this complicated issue.
kay
@burnspbesq:
Ah, but that’s the beauty of this competition. Democrats lie. Of course they do. But Republicans win Lie Of The Year, two years running.
I think that’s a real accomplishment.
matoko_chan
@kay: dont be so down, Kay. they cant repeal HCR unless they can take the presidency in 2012.
Veto Power FTW!
and the presidency is simply an impossible problem for them.
they cannot nominate a secular candidate and they cant take the WH without one.
2012 is actually their last chance at the presidency before the demographic timer on non-hispanic caucs starts kickin in.
trollhattan
This one’s already in the bag:
“The 2010 election was a mandate for the Republicans to…[plug in issue de jour]”
matoko_chan
Games Theory 101.
Strategy beats tactics in the iterated game.
all the TP/GOP HAS is tactical strikes.
they cant play the long game.
Xenos
@matoko_chan: But they are looking for the equivalent of a tactical nuke – nchallah they don’t find it.
In other terms, hoo sez we get iterations >1?
Riggsveda
I always thought that government was something you took over, not something that took over you.
WyldPirate
@atlliberal:
You say these over-the-top things, but there is a steady 25-20% of the electorate that BELIEVES what they say as gospel. That is a larger number than the people that consider themselves “liberal”
Don’t be surprised when the Rethugs take the Senate by a healthy margin in ’12 shouting the same old lies from the rooftops.
matoko_chan
@Xenos:
they won’t. because it does not exist.
i think the whole phailosophy of conservatism is inherently tactical…standing athwart history hollering stop is hardly conducive to strategic planning.
PKG
My guess is a little different – what’s going to happen this next year is that much crazy shit will pass in the house, to die in the senate or via veto pen. They need to get set up for 2012.
So the big lie for 2011 will be: “The democrats are obstructionists who aren’t allowing congress to fix america.”
Legalize
The big lie of 2011 will be that economic improvement is due to Teabagger policies and efforts. It has already started.
matoko_chan
@WyldPirate: wont happen. 2010 was the Revenge of the Heartland….it only proved conservatives can win LOCALLY.
in a general election whatever failcandidate takes the republican nom will poison the downticket.
Xenos
@WyldPirate:
Not to get too Pollyannish, but this would have Obama, who is very unlikely to lose, with no coat-tails. Maybe an analysis of the specific Senate races support the contention that those states will not have coat-tails.
WyldPirate
@kay:
No, they did it because lying is effective and the electorate is stupid and because health care makes the rube’s eyes glaze over. Until the rubes ge3t sick, they have no real concept of how health care costs can devestate you and your family finances.
matoko_chan
@Xenos: and politics is definitely an Iterated Game.
kay
@matoko_chan:
Well, thank you. I’m not all that down. I actually think the repeal vote is a bad political move.
Republicans have convinced themselves people want more debate on health care, because that belief plays into last year’s political strategy (ram down throats, etc.) I don’t think that’s true. I think people were completely disgusted and turned off watching the Senate yammer on about health care (and who can blame them? Not me.)
I don’t know that the House screaming on and on about health care in Year Two is going to be any more attractive. I know it’s not. Max Baucus is horrifying, but the GOP House is no prize. The process is ugly. It’s not going to get any prettier when Republicans are using it.
Xenos
Answering my own question from Wikipedia:
4 Complete list of races
4.1 Retiring Democrats
4.1.1 Kent Conrad of North Dakota
4.2 Retiring Republicans
4.2.1 Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas
4.3 Retiring Independents
4.3.1 Joe Lieberman of Connecticut
4.4 Democratic Incumbents Who May Seek Re-Election
4.4.1 Dianne Feinstein of California
4.4.2 Tom Carper of Delaware
4.4.3 Bill Nelson of Florida
4.4.4 Daniel Akaka of Hawaii
4.4.5 Ben Cardin of Maryland
4.4.6 Debbie Stabenow of Michigan
4.4.7 Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota
4.4.8 Claire McCaskill of Missouri
4.4.9 Jon Tester of Montana
4.4.10 Ben Nelson of Nebraska
4.4.11 Bob Menendez of New Jersey
4.4.12 Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico
4.4.13 Kirsten Gillibrand of New York
4.4.14 Sherrod Brown of Ohio
4.4.15 Bob Casey, Jr. of Pennsylvania
4.4.16 Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island
4.4.17 Jim Webb of Virginia
4.4.18 Maria Cantwell of Washington
4.4.19 Joe Manchin of West Virginia
4.4.20 Herb Kohl of Wisconsin
4.5 Independent Incumbents Who May Seek Re-Election
4.5.1 Bernie Sanders of Vermont
4.6 Republican Incumbents Who May Seek Re-Election
4.6.1 Jon Kyl of Arizona
4.6.2 Richard Lugar of Indiana
4.6.3 Olympia Snowe of Maine
4.6.4 Scott Brown of Massachusetts
4.6.5 Roger Wicker of Mississippi
4.6.6 John Ensign of Nevada
4.6.7 Bob Corker of Tennessee
4.6.8 Orrin Hatch of Utah
4.6.9 John Barrasso of Wyoming
OK. It is going to suck.
terraformer
@kay:
Or, as Steve Benen (more and more annoyingly) refers to it as: “deeply confused.”
C’mon Benen. They’re fucking lying! Call them on it, enough pussyfooting around…(and where did that term come from? Dick Morris?)
matoko_chan
@WyldPirate: this is true.
HCR is permanent defeat for the TP/GOP.
And they know it. they have known it since 1993.
WSJ Dec 2008
HCR repeal is the Custer’s Last Stand of the TPGOP in America.
Xenos
@matoko_chan: Custer only got one iteration.
matoko_chan
@Xenos: Custer only got one iteration. not relly….he was conformant with the US government’s repeated attempts to control/and/or/decimate the indigenous population. he was part of a larger gamespace.
his individual gamespace tactics failed at the Little Bighorn is all.
slag
And in other news:
What could go wrong?
Mike in NC
“Guns don’t kill people; people do.”
or maybe
“Tax cuts will cure cancer.”
Shalimar
If you “believe” it because Frank Luntz tells you it polls well, then it is even more of a lie because you know the truth and choose to tell your constituents the opposite. In other words, saying you believe something you really don’t believe just adds another lie on top of the government takeover crap.
morzer
@matoko_chan:
Whereas standing athwart a blog hollering is?
Omnes Omnibus
@morzer: Why would someone stand athwart a blog and holler “is”?
morzer
@Omnes Omnibus:
Why does Matoko do anything?
Omnes Omnibus
@morzer: I’ll admit it. You have stumped me.
McWaffle
The Big Lie of the year? Easy. It was the Big Lie last year too:
Deification of “The Founders” and completely misrepresenting them to conveniently align with whatever talking point needs a bit of demagoguery.
I really think the old saying needs to be updated, “When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross, and saying, “The Founders intended this.”
morzer
@Omnes Omnibus:
Join the club. We’ve got jackets.
Omnes Omnibus
@morzer: Blazers or leather jackets?
morzer
@Omnes Omnibus:
Blazers,definitely. Wouldn’t want to be mistaken for a Reason staff outing.
Omnes Omnibus
@morzer: That was my worry. Okay, I’m in.
kth
Actually the “takeover” talking point reveals a lot if you unpack it. The current law having quite obviously been written to keep the insurance industry intact to the greatest degree possible, what Republicans are really saying is that any private-based system that guarantees access to everyone is doomed to fall apart.
That’s a shocking admission on their part, and a compelling argument for single payer if it proves true.
morzer
@Omnes Omnibus:
*Terrorist fist-bump*.
Amen, brother.
Triassic Sands
In order for something to qualify as the BIG LIE of the Year, it has to be about something that gets a lot of attention, like health care. Ordinarily, one might expect the horrific shootings in Tucson to bring about a nationwide discussion of guns, 2nd Amendment rights, and gun control. But this is no ordinary country, or at least not what we might hope would qualify as an ordinary country (that is, one populated mostly by reasonably intelligent, reasonably well-informed, reasonably thoughtful people), so that discussion will never take place and what might have been the BIG LIE of 2011 — namely, that if every American were always armed, this would be a safer country (or some variation of this) — may not even surface. In a way, that’s sad, because as a lie it really is one major whopper.
kay
@kth:
They haven’t thought it through to that extent. They’re babbling on about the commerce clause, and Federalist 45, or whatever.
You, alone, in your spare time outside your real job, have given much more thought to health care than any GOP House member, if you’re at the point where you’re talking about a possible intersect between a public program and the private system, and you are.
cckids
@Elvis Elvisberg:
Yes! “Obama’s coming to take your guns!” falls into this category. I cannot tell you how many times I hear this. I keep saying, “he’s sure taking his time about it.” Dupes of the gun/ammo industry.
Tony J
Given that the Dems hold the White House and a Senate majority, I’d expect to see their refusal to vote into law any of the shit coming from the GOP House to be described as “Democrats Break the System” with a side-order of “Roadblock Politics”.
What? You think the Republicans will want to take the blame when they shut down Government again? They’ll need to get out ahead of that meme this time.
Triassic Sands
@Tony J:
Tony J — I was writing the following before your comment appeared; I left the computer with my comment almost finished; when I returned, I refreshed and your similar comment appeared. However it is phrased, this does seem like a reasonable contender.
Could the Big Lie be: Democrats — the Party of NO! The Democratic Senate prevents the country from making any progress because they won’t cooperate with the Republican House.
This is the kind of thing that could easily qualify, both because it is ridiculous and because it’s the kind of
thingabsurdity Luntz latches onto.Tony J
I’ve got a better one. This time the site shut down and my reply was lost in IE confusion. (angry face)
Basically, I said I couldn’t see them doing anything else. Shutting down the Government doesn’t play well electorally, but since they have a vested interest in sabotaging the system so they can play the “This Time We Need Real Change” card in 2012, they have to give The Village a meme they can run with while they’re telling the electorate it was clearly the fault of the Democrats that nothing got done in the 2011 Congress.
Then I speculated that David Broder’s theme for the 2012 Elections would be that, since the Democrats had proven themselves unwilling to compromise and govern in a bipartisan manner, they had no one but themselves to blame if the electorate gave the GOP a stonking majority and a President that would work with them.
Will WP eat this, also?
shep
No, but I can predict the final success of a longstanding right-wing naming/framing effort. Count how many time a mainstream (not right-wing) reporter or pundit uses the phrase “Democrat Party”.
matoko_chan
@morzer: wallah….you mistake my mission.
i am a GRIEFER.
i dont have a strategy.
i grief, therefore i am.
matoko_chan
@Omnes Omnibus: or if you prefer….im here to shove the cattle prod of enlightenment up your wide bovine asses long enough for you to smell the stench of the recycled cowshit you are scarfing down.
no need to thank me– i enjoi it.
;)
Thomas Anjeri
Why don’t the Dems just hire Luntz? They have more money on hand than the GOP for such things and I Luntz seems shallow enough to be willing to work for whomever will pay him more. Like it or not, the phrases and terminology he comes up with works, I don’t understand why the Dems don’t steal him.
walrus
2011? Already decided.
“JOB KILLING”
as in “Job Killing” legislation/
“Job killing” policy
“Job killing” regulations
etc.
LongHairedWeirdo
What will be the big lie of this year? Duh.
“The Republican recovery”. They’re already trying to claim credit for the economic improvement of the past few months.
kay
@LongHairedWeirdo:
I don’t think that works. The President gets credit and blame for the economy, no matter if there’s causation or not. All they’d be doing is improving Obama’s chances in 2012 if they start crowing about job creation. No Presidential-year voter is going to make this crucial distinction between The Obama Economy and the Boehner Economy.
I think that’s an inter-Party thing, like how conservative try to take credit for the Clinton economy, which was useless and a waste of time, and probably helped him. Obama will love to talk about that.
They’re in a bit of a bind there.
RalfW
The line today was that this takeover will remove your choice in medical care decision making.
I take it that the major complaint is the mandate for insurance.
Now, our state, like most (all?), have an auto insurance mandate. State gubmit demands that all drivers have a policy. Does this mean that government bureaucrats have taken away drivers choice in driving?
In a strained analysis, you could say that people have lost the choice to risk financial ruin while driving. But as long as you have some basic coverage, you can drive just about any damn place you want. You still have your “drivers choice in driving.”
This B.S. that HCR will change how you relate to your doctor is part and parcel of the whole #1 lie for 2010. And they’re finding new ways to message it for 2011.
MaryQ
I vote “jared loughner’s left wing ties” for 2011.
Mike Nardozzi
I think “obstructionist democrats in the Senate and Whitehouse” will be my-feelings-are-hurt cry every time they pass some crazy shit in the House that gets ignored by the Senate or vetoed by Obama.