Remember when the Democrats were called the 'nanny party'?

When was the last time we heard the Republican Party out front and center on ensuring that the women of America get adequate services like mammography? Now the GOP is using the recent U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommendations on mammograms as another weapon to oppose health care legislation.

A quick round-up:

From Republican Rep. Dave Camp of Michigan, "This is the preview of what the movie's going to look like if the Pelosi health care plan or the Obama health care plan passes."

A group of Republican congresswomen held a press conference denouncing the recommendations as 'government rationing.'

Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) made the same accusation.

Rightwing periodical Human Events ("Headquarters of the Conservative Underground"), ditto.

This dittohead uniformity is not reasoned argument; it is talking point. The GOP and the right seized on the common-sense mammography recommendations as an anti-insurance-reform talking point. (Side note: They did the same thing with Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden in the GWBush administration. Under FOIA, I obtained some of those 'missing' emails from the previous administration, pertaining to Omar and bin Laden. The emails show no administration interest in Omar or bin Laden except as GOP talking points. More on this later.)

Looking at this obvious political tactic in a political light, I don't think it will fly. No one believes that the GOP has been front and center on health issues like adequate clinics, clean hospitals, or proper nutrition, for the past thirty years or so. 

But GOP synthetic outrage over the task force recommendations could provide a fig leaf for several 'Blue Dog' Dems. That is the purpose often served by synthetic outrage. It also gives corporate media outlets a fig leaf, such that even the most harebrained positions can be presented as one side in an artificially fifty-fifty 'debate.'