Shorthand

Politifact.com, the so-called truth detector run by the St. Petersburg Times, is catching a lot of grief from certain liberal quarters for its selection of the No. 1 political falsehood of the year: That Republicans, in supporting Rep. Paul Ryan's plan, were guilty of "voting to end Medicare." New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, always glad to point out conservative misdeeds, says the PolitiFact folks "are terrified of being partisan if they acknowledge the clear fact that there's a lot more lying on one side of the political divide than the other. So they've bent over backwards to appeaar 'balanced' -- and in the process made themselves useless and irrelevant." Check their facts, damn it, and never dare question our side. And here is Steve Benen of Washington Monthly, whom Krugman credits with the clearest explanation of PolitiFact's error:

It's unnerving that we have to explain this again, but since PolitiFact appears to be struggling with the relevant details, let's set the record straight.

Medicare is a single-payer health care system offering guaranteed benefits to seniors. The House Republican budget plan intended to privatize the existing system and replace it with something very different — a voucher scheme. It would still be called “Medicare,” but it wouldn't be Medicare.

It seems foolish to have to parse the meaning of the word “end,” but if there's a program, and it's replaced with a different program, proponents brought an end to the original program. That's what the verb means.

I've been trying to think of the best analogy for this. How about this one: imagine someone owns a Ferrari. It's expensive and drives beautifully, and the owner desperately wants to keep his car intact. Now imagine I took the car away, removed the metallic badge off the trunk that says “Ferrari,” I stuck it on a golf cart, and I handed the owner the keys.

“Where's my Ferrari?” the owner would ask.

“It's right here,” I'd respond. “This has four wheels, a steering wheel, and pedals, and it says