In a Bloomberg News column, Kevin Hassett of the American Enterprise Institute added another example to the already sizable pile of absurd right-wing comparisons involving health care reform. In today's version, Hassett decried health care reform as “the most reckless policy experiment in [American] history, the economic equivalent of the Bay of Pigs invasion.” As Media Matters has documented extensively, those in the right-wing media have regularly made ridiculous health care reform comparisons in an effort to attack President Obama and his policies.

For instance, Rush Limbaugh repeatedly pushed the Nazi theme when describing Obama's health care plan, and Glenn Beck compared health care reform to Flight 93 on 9-11, Pearl Harbor, Neville Chamberlain meeting Adolf Hitler, and the Hindenburg disaster. Other right-wing media figures have compared the passage of health care reform legislation to historical events including the Black Plague, Bloody Sunday, the passage of the Stamp Act, the federal government's refusal to bail out New York City in the 1970s, the Jonestown massacre, and The Day The Music Died.

From Hassett's August 2 column:

One of the more illuminating remarks during the health-care debate in Congress came when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told an audience that Democrats would “pass the bill so you can find out what's in it, away from the fog of controversy.”

That remark captured the truth that, while many Americans have a vague sense that something bad is happening to their health care, few if any understand exactly what the law does.

To fill this vacuum, Representative Kevin Brady of Texas, the top House Republican on the Joint Economic Committee, asked his staff to prepare a study of the law, including a flow chart that illustrates how the major provisions will work.

The result, made public July 28, provides citizens with a preview of the impact the health-care overhaul will have on their lives. It's a terrifying road map that shows Democrats have launched America on the most reckless policy experiment in its history, the economic equivalent of the Bay of Pigs invasion.