Until recently, I didn’t think that Chuck Grassley would have any difficulty getting reelected. The Democrats don’t have really high-profile contenders, and Grassley has a lot of seniority and remains fairly popular in Iowa. But I’m starting to wonder whether Grassley might be putting himself in jeopardy. As the Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee, he provides the public face to Republican obstruction of Obama’s health care reform. If health care doesn’t get done, or if it has to be done through the budget reconciliation process because the Finance Committee can’t report out an acceptable bill, then Grassley is going to get a lot of blame for that. And he’s now joined the ranks of the Deathers. The Deathers are people who are spreading the rumor that the end-of-life counseling (i.e., advice on filling out a Living Will) in the health care proposals is the equivalent of the Federal Government performing euthanasia on you against your wishes. Sarah Palin repeated that inanity yesterday. Only a shrieking idiot would make such a claim, but apparently Grassley is now a shrieking idiot. Yesterday, he said this in a town-hall meeting:
“In the House bill, there is counseling for end of life,” Grassley said. “You have every right to fear. You shouldn’t have counseling at the end of life, you should have done that 20 years before. Should not have a government run plan to decide when to pull the plug on grandma.”
He’s convinced Chairman Baucus to remove funding for end-of-life counseling from the Finance Committee bill.
The veteran Iowa lawmaker said the end-of-life provision in those [other committees’] bills would pay physicians to “advise patients about end-of-life care and rate physician quality of care based on the creation of and adherence to orders for end-of-life care.
“Maybe others can defend a bill like the Pelosi bill that leaves major issues open to interpretation, but I can’t,” Grassley added.
It’s open to interpretation that Iowa is land-locked, but that doesn’t mean anyone who thinks it sits on the Indian Ocean isn’t an ignorant fool. Sometimes when senators get old they start to lose their judgment. Even popular politicians can lose the support of the electorate if people can see that they’re slowing going nuts. Grassley should have an easy reelection but if he doesn’t stop acting like a jackass the people of Iowa just might rethink things. Iowa, after all, has a special relationship with Barack Obama. I don’t think they will reward a half-demented Grassley for obstructing his agenda.
