It's an enormous lie. Various government advisory panels have been trying to ratchet up the age for women to begin routine mammograms (from 40 to 50) going back to the Clinton administration through the George W. Bush administration and now, again, in the Obama administration. I'm not sure which side is right; I know doctors and breast cancer advocates on both sides of the issue. All I know is that the recent recommendations have nothing to do with so-called Obamacare. But I watched Barrasso, who clearly knows better, lie to Schultz about it all on Thursday. Here's what he said:

"You see what happened now with this rationing of care, with this preventive task force, they're preventing services for women, with mammograms. That's really a preview into what may happen with healthcare in America, when you get the government standing in between a patient and their doctor….Washington says it knows best, it says 'No, don't do mammograms to age 50, stop after age 75. 'You know what that's gonna do? That's gonna cost lives."

Thanks to Ed Schultz for giving me the chance to answer Barrasso, and explain how badly he distorted the facts about the panel's origins and power, and how well he represented the Republican position: say absolutely anything to stop healthcare reform. Lie, if you have to. Of course, the preventive services panel has no standing to change policy, and both Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and the American Cancer Society came out against the panel's recommendations. And Barrasso knows that.

That's what I said on "The Ed Show." One post-show correction: It's not the very same panel issuing these mammogram-restricting guidelines over the years; earlier it was the National Institute of Health's Consensus Development Conference that recommended that mammograms begin at 50. The point is that various federal panels under various presidents have suggested raising the age at which women start mammography, and three presidents in both parties over the last 20 years have had to decide what to do. Clearly it's a medical debate, not a political one, and Republicans are dishonest and fear-mongering to pretend otherwise. 

But the Palin assault keeps getting more surreal, and more intriguing. Wednesday night came the news that Palin wouldn't rule out the idea of Fox News host (and professional paranoid) Glenn Beck as a possible 2012 running mate.

Newsmax reporter David Patten says Palin "chuckled" when he broached the idea, but then gave Beck his props:

"I can envision a couple of different combinations, if ever I were to be in a position to really even seriously consider running for anything in the future, and I'm not there yet," Palin told Newsmax. "But Glenn Beck I have great respect for. He's a hoot. He gets his message across in such a clever way. And he's so bold — I have to respect that. He calls it like he sees it, and he's very, very, very effective."

Once again, I agree with Palin: Beck is indeed a "hoot" and he's very, very, very effective, at lying about President Obama and whipping his paranoid base into a deluded frenzy. So what is she doing: trying to sell books to that same base -- a nice potential book market but a sliver of the electorate -- or genuinely charting her 2012 course?

Judging by Palin's erratic behavior on this book tour, and her erratic handle on the truth within the book, it's honestly hard to tell. I think, as I said Monday, she is first and foremost about Sarah Palin Inc., becoming rich and powerful, but that may well be a path to Sarah Palin 2012. I will say it again: She will never be our president. But I can't rule out her being the 2012 Republican nominee.

When you look at the charisma-free roster of likely GOP candidates -- from 2008 has-beens Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee and "I was for trying terrorists in NYC before I was against it" Rudy Giuliani, to that hunka-hunka burning boredom Tim "T-Paw" Pawlenty -- it's easy to see Palin creaming them. On the other hand, they might spend a lot on opposition research and/or get whatever Levi Johnston claims to have. Either way, the only person I see derailing Palin from the GOP nomination in 2012 is Palin herself.

And that's still quite possible. Whether you seriously care about policy or politics, she's a train wreck. I doubt she's silly enough to seriously consider someone as deranged as Glenn Beck as her running mate; I give her enough credit to assume that was just chicken-fried red meat for her base. But just look at her soliloquy on why her hateful and false claims about "death panels" are just like Ronald Reagan's rhetoric about the Soviet Union as an "evil empire." Here's what she told ABC's Barbara Walters, in all its syntactical, self-deluding glory. She admitted there are no death panels in Obama's plans, but goes on:

"It's kind of like what Reagan used to do, though, when he talked about, say, the ‘evil empire.' You're never going to find the evil empire on a map of the world ... And yet he talked about that, in terms that people could understand -- kind of rationing down, not complicating the issue. [Just a question, does she mean "ratcheting down?" My head hurts.]

"But he, with the issue of the evil empire at the time, used those two words to get people to shake up, wake up, find out what's going on here. Now, had he been criticized and, and mocked, and, and condemned for ever using a term that wasn't actually there on a map, or in documents, we probably would never have succeeded in, in crushing the evil empire, and winning that."

Dear Baby Jesus, where should I start? First of all, let me defend Ronald Reagan (despite global warming, hell keeps freezing over!): He did not mean the Soviet Union was literally an "evil empire" you could find on a map. It was his opinion, a turn of phrase, and well within the bounds of political rhetoric; there were many evil things about the way Soviet leaders treated dissidents, Jews, minorities, anyone who dared to differ from their dreary party line. So Palin's wrong in the way she depicts Reagan's "evil empire" argument.

Of course she's also wrong about the way the political world greeted that argument. Reagan was, in fact, widely "criticized" and "condemned" and probably even mocked for using the term; many people felt it wasn't the best way to keep peace with the Soviet Union and win them over to our side -- especially since there was a lot of evidence the Communist giant was crumbling even before Reagan's rhetorical assault (at least partly because of its Afghanistan folly; Palin's advisors might want to mention that to her!). Sunny Ronald Reagan shrugged off such criticism; Sarah Palin laps up the bile and turns into a victim and of course a self-described "pit bull," albeit with lovely lip gloss.

Whatever! Palin's book tour will be a political success; her book will sell and make her the money she brags she's never had. And Palin may well be the 2012 GOP nominee. But as she cozies up to Glenn Beck and mangles even her own party's history, it's increasingly clear she will never be our president. But trust me: She and her know-little followers will cause trouble for President Obama and the Democrats for the foreseeable future.

Here's a great video of MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell trying to ask Palin supporters in Grand Rapids, Mich., on Wednesday what she believes in. They get her position on TARP wrong (she supported it) and two of them just lapse into paranoid right-wing ranting about how she'll defend the Constitution. Nice to see O'Donnell asking real questions; scary to see how they're answered: 

Criticized by right and left -- even my friend Markos Moulitsas thinks Newsweek went too far; Media Matters has been blasting Newsweek all day -- Meacham told Politico: "We chose the most interesting image available to us to illustrate the theme of the cover, which is what we always try to do. We apply the same test to photographs of any public figure, male or female: does the image convey what we are saying? That is a gender-neutral standard."

Really, Jon Meacham? Did you really want to say that? OK, then, let's deconstruct the cover entirely. The photo of the lovely, bare-legged Palin is paired with the headline: "How do you solve a problem like Sarah?" For those too young to recognize the reference, it's from a "Sound of Music" song, "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?" about a young novice who is too cute and flighty to be a nun ("she's a flibbertyjibbit, a will o' the wisp, a clown!"). That's a great way to describe our first GOP vice-presidential nominee. Not sexist at all. (The "how do you solve a problem like" cliché is typically applied to women, although I'm proud of once asking "How do you solve a problem like Joe Lieberman?" who is certainly a clown.) Oh yes, Jon Meacham, your answer is proof-positive that there was no sexism to your imagery. Fail.

A few liberals are trying to suggest that Palin has nothing to whine about since she willingly posed for the picture, but that's silly: What she wore to a Runners' World shoot is different from what she'd wear for Newsweek. I've heard people defend the photo because Palin uses her sexuality as part of her political appeal, and I think that's also unfair. She didn't campaign in daisy dukes and crop-tops; she's a good-looking woman who wore flattering but professional jackets and skirts. Of course her looks are part of her appeal -- I don't think the gulf between men and women who "approve" of Palin (yup, she's more popular with men, go figure!) is about her policy ideas -- but attractive women are damned whatever they do with their looks. And let's be clear -- this wasn't an article about Palin's sex appeal, or the role of her gender in the campaign -- this was an article about her political assets and flaws. The out-of-context photo was, in fact, "sexist and degrading," as Palin says.

That's about all the time I have to spend feeling sympathy for Sarah Palin: I detest her political ideas and her divisive approach to politics. But I call out sexism when I see it. Jon Meacham used a nice pair of women's legs to sell his political magazine this week, reducing a powerful, ambitious woman to her shapely body parts, and that's sexism. (On Twitter, the Washington Independent's Dave Weigel linked to this alleged video of a Newsweek editorial meeting.)  It's nice to see a lot of men and women on the right and left agree about something for a change. Maybe we can agree to get rid of the Stupak amendment! Nah, I didn't think so. 

Now that her Oprah appearance is over – and boy, did Oprah let the liberals in her audience down; what a waste! – let me confess to my own Palin fatigue. I just can't take seriously the idea that she'll ever be president, even after her moderately successful softball game with Oprah. Palin sealed that fate when she quit being governor (although maybe she can run with Lou Dobbs on the All Quitters ticket in 2012). She'll never obtain the record or the reliability she needs to run credibly for president now that she gave up the modestly challenging job of running Alaska. I don't see her ever having the self-discipline or the humility to admit how very much she'd need to learn to be remotely qualified.

On top of everything else, she seems like a vindictive, spiteful person, judging from her reputation in Alaska politics, her open warfare with the McCain campaign and her juvenile tit-for-tat with her 19-year-old grandbaby-daddy Levi Johnston. If she can't brush off Levi's provocations, how would she handle Ahmadinejad? Or Joe Lieberman? I'll even allow that there's some sexism in the equation: Women suffer more from being perceived as vindictive and spiteful than men do. (It clearly didn't stop George W. Bush or John McCain.) Not fair; still true. But to be completely fair, McCain and even Bush accomplished more than Palin in the same life span, which maybe made their vindictiveness a little bit less defining than hers.

The main reason not to fear a President Palin can be seen in recent polling among independents and moderates. In a the most current ABC News/Washington Post poll, Greg Sargent drilled down to find that: only 37 percent of independents and 30 percent of self-described moderates think she’s qualified for the presidency, and 58 percent of moderates view her unfavorably. Even more intriguing (but not surprising): Palin's approval rating with men is higher than with women, 48 percent to 39 percent, and just a third of women believe she'd be qualified to be our first female president. (So much for Palin's appeal to Hillary Clinton fans!)

So I think the Sarah Palin rehab tour is more about Sarah Palin Inc. than Sarah Palin 2012. She'll rack up the speaking fees, raise some money for red-state, red-meat Republicans, further polarize the party and live the high life she thinks she deserves. Still, even as I dismiss Palin as a serious GOP threat, increasingly I believe that the faux-populism of the right is something to worry about. It may be fun to mock Sarah Palin, but Democrats shouldn't laugh at many of the people who admire her – who see a folksy, new kind of self-made mom trying to fight the bad old Eastern elites.

Two great blog posts last week made me worry: Timothy Egan's "The Betrayal," and my friend Digby's "What if they don't," about how liberals are too complacent that moderate Republicans and the rest of the country will laugh off the likes of Palin, Dobbs, Tom Tancredo and all the silly nutjobs who listen to them.

Egan intensified my growing fear that Democrats may be unable to ride the rising tide of populist rage, given their ties to Wall Street and K Street. "If health care reform gives people a choice, and doesn’t just fatten the rolls of insurance companies, it will be something to run on," Egan wrote. "If the recovery helps millions of people who don’t have a well-staffed lobby in Washington, it too will be a plus." But Egan made a good case that the party increasingly identified with Goldman Sachs may well pay at the polls nationwide in 2010, as Jon Corzine did in New Jersey this month.

So while I'm not worried about President Palin, I remain worried about President Obama. I'm particularly concerned that his increasingly triangulating, anti-deficit administration will do the wrong thing, morally and politically, and move to the right, without understanding that some right-wing rage could be rechanneled by acknowledging its roots: That the economic system seems rigged for the have-a-lots v. the have-a-littles, and despite their promises, the Democrats haven't done enough to change that. Palin can't change any of that, but Obama can. There's still time for him to do so, but the clock is ticking. 

"The uninsured have about a 40 percent higher risk of dying each year than otherwise comparable insured individuals," David Himmelstein, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program, told Agence France Presse. "Putting that all together you get an estimate of almost 2,300 -- 2,266 veterans who die each year from lack of health insurance." Fourteen times as many vets died for lack of health insurance than were killed in Afghanistan last year. Meanwhile, conservative Sen. Tom Coburn continues to block a needed veterans' healthcare bill because it's too expensive.

With Congress taking a break for Veterans Day, and President Obama leaving for a 10-day Asia trip, there isn't likely to be much movement in the House or Senate on healthcare reform soon. We're left with the profound disappointment of the House bill, marred by the Stupak amendment selling out women, and a less than ideal public option. The Senate isn't likely to go for the Stupak amendment, but on the other hand, the public option will have more trouble there, with Joe Lieberman (I-Aetna) promising his "conscience" will force him to filibuster any bill with the public plan. The conscience-free Lieberman is probably just feeling the pangs of a phantom "conscience," like what amputees report experiencing after they lose a limb.

MSNBC's Mark Whitaker just shared his latest reporting from White House and Senate aides, who he says are insisting Sen. Olympia Snowe's public option "trigger" proposal is still alive. Those aides, Whitaker says, are now spinning the idea that the trigger may be more progressive and more robust than the opt-out public option. That's a new one on me, and likely portends a relapse into spinelessness by the White House and Senate Democratic leaders.