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COTTLE: No Exit 

A few feet from his maroon-flocked podium sits Betsy McCaughey, former lieutenant governor of New York, former fellow with the conservative Hudson Institute, and longtime scourge of health care reform. A constitutional scholar by training, McCaughey (pronounced "McCoy") blazed to fame in 1994 as the person who drove a stake through the heart of Hillarycare, with a detailed (and, as it turned out, false) takedown of the plan published in this very magazine.

Fifteen years later, she has reemerged for an encore, penning op-eds and making the TV and radio rounds to issue apocalyptic warnings about the horrors lurking in the fine print of Obamacare. Pick an inflammatory, misleading rumor that has sprung up in this debate, and chances are McCaughey had a hand in springing it. . . .

With the help of a friend on the board of the Manhattan Institute, Betsy landed a fellowship at the conservative think tank, with a mandate to write about electoral reform and the legal system. Instead, in early 1994, she published a scathing vivisection of the Clinton health care plan in The New Republic. Touting her academic experience, McCaughey painted herself as a dispassionate truth-seeker who felt an obligation to read the entire 1,342-page bill (something few lawmakers were willing to do) and flag its malignancies for the rest of us. To emphasize how judicious her research was, McCaughey sprinkled her article with page numbers, directing readers to the exact subsections and footnotes of the text on which her criticisms were based. But, while McCaughey's reading may have been uncommonly thorough, it was also fundamentally incorrect--or grossly dishonest, depending on your view of her (and of a recent Rolling Stone article exposing her consultations with Big Tobacco during the writing). . . .

Palin, of course, hawks homespun wisdom, faith, and common sense, in contrast to McCaughey's figures and footnotes. But both women have an uncanny ability to shovel their toxic nonsense with nary a blink, tremor, or break in those dazzling smiles. People of goodwill and honest counsel don't stand a chance.

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