OUTRAGEOUS - AT 8:07 P.M. ET:  The double standard marches on.  Many commentators agonize over the tone of the current debate over health care, but remained silent at the wild attacks on President Bush - attacks in which he was called a Nazi, a liar, a man who ginned up a war in Texas, and other nice things. 

Now a new episode in the double standards series.  The political world correctly condemned Rep. Joe Wilson for shouting, "You lie," at President Obama during the State of the Union message, and Wilson's Republican colleagues joined in the condemnation.  But an outrage just as serious brings hardly a criticism from the liberal commentariat or the perpetrator's Democratic comrades:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Seeking payback from a recent reprimand of one of their own for heckling President Barack Obama, House Republicans want a Democratic lawmaker to apologize or face a reprimand for saying the GOP wants Americans to ''die quickly'' if they get sick.

Amid the bitter political bickering, Rep. Alan Grayson of Florida stood firmly behind his comments.

The first-term lawmaker returned to the House floor Wednesday afternoon and mocked Republicans' call for an apology by citing a study being published in the American Journal of Public Health that found nearly 45,000 people die each year for lack of health insurance.

''I would like to apologize ... I apologize to the dead and their families that we haven't voted sooner to end this Holocaust in America,'' he said.

COMMENT:  Grayson's wild accusation against the GOP deserves reprimand.  It is a lie, and a big one.  And his use of a Holocaust analogy also deserves reprimand.  (Of course there won't be one).

And I seriously doubt a study saying that 45,000 people die in America each year for lack of health insurance.  We have programs in place to treat people, regardless of their means.  The system needs improvement, of course, but figures like that need to be looked at with two eyes.  Unless people are refused care on economic grounds, they are not dying for lack of health insurance. 

As for Grayson, I saw him on TV today.  He's an embarrassment, but in the precincts of the left, he's mainstream.

September 30, 2009