From today's Washington Post editorial, “Scare Tactics Evade Debate on Real Health Care Issues”:

EZEKIEL EMANUEL, one of President Obama's top health advisers, is a respected bioethicist who opposes euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. When the Supreme Court was considering the constitutionality of state laws that prohibit physician-assisted suicide, Dr. Emanuel was an outspoken opponent of the practice. He warned it could be abused “to justify using euthanasia for children, the incompetent, the mentally ill, and others who are suffering or who we imagine are suffering in some fashion.” So it is grotesque that Dr. Emanuel has become the latest bogeyman -- the “Dr. Death” behind the “death panels” -- for opponents of the Obama administration's push for health-care reform.

[…]

Dr. Emanuel's writings reveal him to be a thoughtful person grappling with difficult ethical issues. The same cannot be said of his critics, who seem less intent on discussing what is in the health reform proposal than in deploying scare tactics to defeat it.

From Washington Post columnist Bill Kristol's August 31 Weekly Standard column:

Conservative policy wonks helped to explode the false budgetary and health-improvement claims made on behalf of Obamacare. Conservative polemicists pointed out how Obamacare--conceived in the spirit of budget chief Peter we-spend-too-much-as-a-nation-on-health-care Orszag and adviser Ezekiel we-need-to-stop-wasting-money-on-extending-low-quality-lives Emanuel--means, in effect, death panels.

So good for them.

Good hire, guys. Clearly a welcome and valuable addition to the Post family.

And yes, Kristol “deploying scare tactics to defeat” the health reform proposal rather than “discussing what is in” it was entirely predictable.