I haven't heard much of Grayson's rehtoric but calling the Republicans solution to health care, "Don't get sick and if you do die quickly" is entirely appropriate and an apt description for the effects of the current state of health insurance in America. In our company we recently were unable to change insurance companies due to one particular employee who had contracted lymphoma. As his cancer progressed more expensive treatments were required. Instead of participating in that wonderful marketplace of insurance policies and finding more affordable insurance for our employees we were forced to endure the constant premium increases as the result of that one ill employee. Certainly we couldn't change policies as he would never be covered due to pre-existing conditions. If he lives we still can't change comnpanies as the possibility of a reoccurence constitutes a pre-existing condition. When this employee tragically died our company was finally able to find other coverage to bring down the cost of health insurance to our employees. Like Grayson says, "Don't get sick and if you do die quickly".

Red meat in politics is nothing new, nor has it really risen dramatically this year. All that has changed is the target and Time seems uncomfortable with that. Complaining about corruption and dishonesty didn't bother during the last eight years for some unknown reason. And it's not like Minnesotans don't have a history of rewarding the red meat pundits. Look at our new senator.

Rush Limbaugh and Fox News used the most outrageous language and lies to rile up their audiences for years before the first return shot was fired in the form of Al Franken's book against Limbaugh.

Then, all of a sudden, I began to read articles in mainstream publications about "the decline of civility in public discourse."

In other words, lack of civility became a problem in the eyes of the mainstream media only after the left started fighting back. Before then, the talk radio guys and Fox News could accuse that ill-defined group known as "liberals" of every sin except cannibalism, and there were no reaction from the center.

I have long believed that right-wing media serve a distinct and insidious purpose: to take the justifiable anger of the American middle and working classes and channel it away from the people who are actually responsible for the mess this country is in (the fat cats in the military-industrial complex, the bought-off politicians who do their bidding) and toward a laundry list of scapegoats (immigrants, African-Americans, people on welfare, feminists, labor unions, teachers, environmentalists, ACORN), none of whom actually call the shots in this country.

"attributed by one side TO the other side."

Sorry.