time for the politics fix with columnist kathleen parker and salon.com's editor-in-chief joan walsh. i'm not sure you're going to argue much. i've never seen a stronger column in the newspapers than what i read this morning when i got up. reason i'm so glad kathleen is joining us is she wrote this column basically back up senator voinovich of ohio saying the republican party which has been pretty well over the last half century as been getting destroyed by the right wring wingers in the south. we've talked about the obsession with the birther thing down in the south and all the rest of the ethnic potential here. here's a quote that really grabbed me. that same rage was on display again in the fall of 2008, but this time, the frenzy was stimulated by a pretty gal with a mocking little wink. sarah palin may not have realized what she was doing. but southerners weaned on harper lee heard the dog whistle. kathleen, heard the dog whistle. is sarah palin a poster girl for racism? yes or no. >> not consciously. >> not consciously. >> i don't think, i certainly don't think she, sarah palin k

. >> let's talk about the senate and go to joan walsh, editor-in-chief of salon.com. joan, good to have you on tonight. >> hi, ed. glad to be here. >> what play would you like to see the democrats do in the senate to draw this out? what should they do politically with the republicans in the senate? >> i think it's time to stop playing games with them. i'm sure you saw it today. orrin hatch and chuck grassley, two leading, sober, moderate republicans came out and said their idea of a bipartisan bill would be that it would have to get 75 to 80 senators to sign on or else they won't go for it. >> what do you think of that? >> that is garbage. that's antidemocratic. barack obama won with a mandate and now it's like he's giving it away by negotiating with these people. i do agree that the president got religion in the last few days. i'm not going to be one to sit here and say he's smarter than we are and it was a trial balloon. i don't believe that. whatever happened, i agree with representative waters. we saw the beginning of a really active, activist, grass roots base ris

joan walsh is the editor in chief for salon.com. what do you make of that claim that this is not manufactured, this is all just grassroots just springing up on its own. >> right. it's bogus. it's a completely bogus claim. we know. we have grover norquist and dick army's freedom works. we have the largest trade association of health insurance companies, sorry, who are produced -- and this isn't bad, but they're producing talking points and they're deliberately organizing to send people out into these town halls to -- they would say not to disrupt them but to ask questions. they are being disrupted. the other thing i think is not kosher, as you heard in that one confrontation, well, obama supports single payer. he does not. the campaign combines both frenzy and lying so that you're getting a lot of misinformation about end of -- mandatory end of life counseling and glenn beck apparently was on tv today saying it's going to lead to murdering babies. i mean, it's so extreme and shrill and fact-free that it's disturbing. >> and i wonder,

time now for the politics fix with joan walsh and syndicated columnist tony blankly. know you believe in truth, justice, and the american way. i want you to address that woman's comment that we just heard where she said that this bill will provide fewer health care providers. will you please tell her that there is nothing in this bill that reduces the number of health care providers in this country? >> as you know, no bill. one of the president's problems -- >> in any of the bills that have been written there is not a sentence about reducing the number of medical school graduates, right? >> right. >> can't we just all get along here? >> no. the problem is, the same problem that george bush had in 2005 on social security, that unless there is one -- which he didn't have one specific bill with all the details. as a result, every possible negative could be raised by his opposition. the same is true for the president today. that there are five separate bills. we have no idea what the final bill is going to look like. inferences can be drawn fairly and unfairly and are and

let's go to joan walsh of salon and ron reagan of air america radio. let me go to you joan and your thoughts on this. it seems to me you must be somewhat sanguine about reading the other side of the ideological argument has been caught with an insider blowing the whistle as loud as i can imagine. the secretary of homeland security himself is saying that in the interests of politics, the people around the table the weekend before the 2004 election were playing politics to get their guy re-elected so they could keep their jobs. >> it's completely believable, and liberals are saying it that summer and they were laughed at, they were mocked. he also admits that they raised the threat level and talked about the great presidency of george bush right after john kerry accepted the nomination in boston that year. so they really did orchestrate -- they used terror to scare people. they used terror to diminish kerry. i remember john kerry had to come out and smack howard dean, who was telling the truth about this that they were politicizing the terror warnings, be

time for "the politics fix" with joan walsh and watch this.ng at that woman who compared barack obama's health care plan to hitler. here he is. >> why do you support this as obama has? >> when you ask me that kwi i am going to revert to my ethnic heritage and answer your question with a question. on what planet do you spend most of your time? it's a tribute to the first amendment this kind of vile, contemptible nonsense is so freely propagated. ma'am, trying to vahave a conversation with you would be like arguing with the dining room table. >> he doesn't want to argue with the dining room table, joan. is this the way democrats should approach their critics on health care? >> i just have to say god bless barney frank. i know he lost his temper and his cool but he is a hero to a lot of liberals, chris. we believe in debate and dialogue. you and i have disagreed over the years. we still come back at friends and still come at it but what's going on is a kind of thuggishness and we're supposed to treat these people like they deserve an equal place

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. >> let's start at the beginning joan walsh.is shifting in favor of those who want reform, voted for reform, worked for reform and are shocked that there are very ritchie let'ses rich elites that would shuck this once nin a lifetime chance for reform because people might touch their profits. they are getting their representatives to pledge that they will not vote for anything that doesn't have a public option. >> sam stine, i want to approach you on these numbers from indiana university, which are very accurate. they've done and now have a history over the years of being accurate in their surveys. what does the obama white house have to do right now to combat these lies? i mean, the president being on vacati vacation -- everybody needs their time off. what do they have to do to turn the thoughts on death panels around, covering illegal immigran immigrants. rationed care. and taxpayer funded abortions. what about all of that? >> if there was a solution, i think they would be deploying it. this is what i'm getting at there is no p

. >> join me a joan walsh and john than.other day rush limbaugh said i had done something he would have got in trouble for. please explain. i said that last year ted kennedy passed the torch of the kennedy brotherhood to barack obama making him the next kennedy, and it was so clear to everybody that's what was going on. he said if he had said something like that he would have been accused of making an ethnic slur because i used the word brother. i point out -- i said it at the time. not in an ethnic sense, not in a richelle sense, brother in the sense of sibling brother, actual brother. he jumped up and made himself into a victim again. what is the matter with these people? can't they take a week off? just take a week off. it's a funeral. take a week off from politics. >> if ted kennedy is one of the great senators of our time, rush limbaugh takes the crown as the great blowhard of our time. there's nobody who would have criticized rush limbaugh if he had talked about a brother because there's so many other things to critici

thank you joan walsh and tony blankly. tony blankley one of the most honorable republicans i know but still can't admit the truth in this debate. join usa gen tomorrow night at 5:00 and 7:00 for more "hardball." "countdown" starts right now. >>> which of these stories will you be talking about tomorrow? the republican plan to euthanize reasonable republicans? the white house praises mr. grassley for negotiating in good faith. mr. grassley promptly tells a town hall -- >> you have every right to fear. you shouldn't have counseling as to human life but 20 years before you're going to die. we should not have a government program that determines when to pull the plug on grandma. >> we don't. we never will. it isn't in the bill. is senator grassley a charleton, an idiot or did the health care sector simply threaten to cut off the $2.5 million he has gotten from them in contributions? senator cardin's town hall in maryland -- >> it does want to kill people like myself. i'm 73. i'm one of those throw aways we've heard so much abo

. >> let's try the joan walsh theory. she was on the other day. in fact, i think she did this on another program. pretend you're jimmy stewart like in the old mr. smith goes to washington" which i recommend everybody see at some time in their life, maybe what the idealists would like to see the senate be. we've put the bill together. we think it's right for the country. if the republicans want to debate it, we'll debate it for a copial weblgs. but at the end of a couple webs, we want to vote on this. if you still don't want us to vote, you're basically filibustering. you bring the cots in. stay here all night and the american people are going to watch you not debate us but basically delay us from doing what the majority wants done. force them to put the movie on. make them show themselves sleeping, standing up all night, listening to them read the bible, all those old tricks they do on the floor, make horses asses out of themselves. force them to do it. say you have the right to do it. give them the full rights of the minority, let them show they'

joan walsh is the editor in chief for salon.com. i want to start with senator grassley. he's come out in regards to the comments he made the bipartisan group drop the end of life provision from the proposal even though he brought it up yesterday, he said that people have every right to fear. when you hear signs like david just mentioned, isn't it a great responsibility to make sure you are always stating the facts, especially when you're an elected official? >> yeah, i would agree with you, tamron. and i know grassley is a conservative, but i don't really consider him part of the bomb-throwing fringe, like sarah palin. >> which is part of the shocking nature of this angle of the story. >> right. he knows better. he knows what's in every bill, and he know that is end of life counseling provision does not have anything to do with doctors deciding who lives or dies. it will give medicare patients the opportunity to have a paid consultation so they can think about those issues like many upper middle class people already do. we have lawyers. we have doctors. we have psycholog