I've been ...

Where Kieth Olbermann was last night. During the course of the past 20 years, my wife and I have had to make those decisions for our mothers, and will have to for her father as well when his time comes. It is not something I wish on anyone.

...

And as I left that night the full impact of these last six months washed over me. What I had done, conferring with the resident in ICU, the conversation about my father's panicky, not-in-complete-control-of-his-faculties demand that all treatment stop, about the options and the consequences and the compromise - the sedation -- the help for a brave man who just needed a break... that conversation, that one -- was what these ghouls who are walking into Blair House tomorrow morning decided to call "Death Panels."

Your right to have that conversation with a doctor -- not the government, but a doctor -- and your right to have insurance pay for his expertise on what your options are when Dad says "kill me" or what your options are when Dad is in a coma and can't tell you a damn thing, or what your options are when everybody is healthy and happy and coherent and you're just planning ahead -- your right to have the guidance and the reassurance of a professional who can lay that out for you... that's a quote "death panel."

That, right now, is the legacy of the protests of these sub-humans who get paid by the insurance companies, who say these things for their own political gain... or like that one fiend... for money.

...

These people have no soul.