According to Wikipedia, a straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position. To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by substituting a superficially similar proposition (the "straw man"), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position.   It should also be noted that a straw man argument is a much weaker and therefore easier to refute argument. Barack Obama and the democrats have enjoyed several unchecked weeks of attacking their favorite straw man, the "death panel" (end of life counseling) reference contained in HR 3200, better known as the Obama Health Care Plan.

Obama has drawn roaring laughter and applause from friendly audiences for saying "we're not going to pull the plug on grandma." He has also pointed to the ludicrousness of suggesting his proposed health care plan is in favor of euthanizing certain individuals. If only President Obama could point to a single reference documenting a republican suggesting that euthanizing activity would take place if HR 3200 were to become law. Obama's statements are a classic example of a person thinking he's smarter than everyone else around him when in reality quite the opposite is true unless of course he's speaking before the AFL-CIO or ACORN. He and other democrats have mischaracterized the very genuine concerns that Sarah Palin and other conservatives have raised about Obama's health care plan.

For the record, Sarah Palin's original Face Book comment regarding the death panel references in HR 3200 stated:

And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.

Apparently our Harvard educated president has not looked up the word euthanize in a credible dictionary. He's used it a lot lately, but doesn't understand why it's inaccurate to apply it to Palin's comments. According to Merriam Webster, to euthanize is to subject to euthanasia which itself means: the act or practice of killing or permitting the death of hopelessly sick or injured individuals ... in a relatively painless way for reasons of mercy. For a man so often touted as educated and smart, he seems hopelessly ignorant on the meaning of this term. Perhaps he should appoint Dr. Jack Kevorkian as his Death Czar? That would get Obama up to speed on the terminology in a hurry.

For the record, Sarah Palin and others have legitimate concerns that government bureaucrats would be empowered to ration health care based on a patients "level of productivity in society" or as others have referred to it their quality adjusted life years or QALYs. Based on one of his health care speeches, we know Barack Obama has some interesting ideas about medicine.  He's on record suggesting family doctors are performing tonsillectomies in a back room with a rusty saw in order to collect a higher fee. Does he really believe that republicans believe HR 3200 calls for patients to actually be put to death or euthanized? Of course he doesn't, but that is a much easier position or straw man to attack and so he does.   Someone should ask Obama the following. If a person needing a cardiovascular bypass operation today in order to save their life is told, as they so often are in the U.K. and in Canada, that they will have to wait six months, for all practical purposes haven't they just been issued a death sentence? It's doubtful he'd draw many laughs with an honest answer to this question.

What our president doesn't seem to understand is that American's know that end of life counseling as it's now written in the bill is meant to be voluntary. American's know that no politician worth his under the table kickbacks would ever include the words "death panels" in a bill.  There is a long history of government creating vague law only to allow the courts to figure out what it means later.  What neither Barack Obama nor any other democrat has explained it how we will take care of 30 million new patients without rationing health care and why this rationing won't lead to bureaucrats determining who receives treatment and who does not.

The official democratic talking point is that these people are in the system now, but receive all of their treatment at emergency rooms.  They go on to explain how inefficient this and how we'll save money by getting people out of the emergency rooms and in to a clinic where they can be seen by a  physician assistant or nurse practitioner.  Obviously, there is some truth to this.  What Obama and the left have failed to understand is that emergency rooms do not provide the type of long term ongoing care necessary to manage people suffering from a chronic diseases. For example, long term diabetes disease state management is not available in emergency rooms.  Colds, accidents and emergencies do not comprise 100% of medical costs in this country.  One of five health care dollars spent in this country goes to managing type two diabetes.  Creating efficiencies in health care is not a simple matter of shifting care from the emergency rooms to clinics.  We've yet to hear what all of these inefficiencies in the system are, but given the views of a doctor who reportedly has the president's ear, Zeke Emanuel, many fear "efficiency" is a code word for denying services to those who in the view of radical liberals don't count - the young and the elderly.

The American people are a lot smarter than liberals or our president give them credit for being.  They know the potential for twisting some vague wording in this bill to eventually mean rationing is real.  Whether it's the end of life counseling or some other provision, eventually wording in the bill will be used to justify the rationing of health care that we all know is inevitable under the president's plan.  Perhaps the next time Obama speaks on health care, he can address this real issue instead of the straw man he enjoys beating up on so much.