SARAH SPEAKS - AT 11:45 P.M. ET:  Look, I can't guarantee that she wrote this herself, or did a second of research, but Sarah Palin has a great column in The Wall Street Journal blasting the Obama health plan.

Given the quality of her acceptance speech before the Republican National Convention last year, I'm going to guess that Palin either did write the column or, at minimum, guided it.  Here's a sample.  It's solid stuff:

Now look at one way Mr. Obama wants to eliminate inefficiency and waste: He's asked Congress to create an Independent Medicare Advisory Council—an unelected, largely unaccountable group of experts charged with containing Medicare costs. In an interview with the New York Times in April, the president suggested that such a group, working outside of "normal political channels," should guide decisions regarding that "huge driver of cost . . . the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives . . . ."

Given such statements, is it any wonder that many of the sick and elderly are concerned that the Democrats' proposals will ultimately lead to rationing of their health care by—dare I say it—death panels? Establishment voices dismissed that phrase, but it rang true for many Americans. Working through "normal political channels," they made themselves heard, and as a result Congress will likely reject a wrong-headed proposal to authorize end-of-life counseling in this cost-cutting context. But the fact remains that the Democrats' proposals would still empower unelected bureaucrats to make decisions affecting life or death health-care matters. Such government overreaching is what we've come to expect from this administration.

COMMENT:  If she keeps writing material like that, she'll build up a body of work that can take her into a future campaign.  This is serious writing, well argued. 

I'd love to see her interviewed by Katie Couric again, and deck Couric - intellectually, of course.

September 8, 2009