In light of the latest unemployment numbers and the fact that the jobs crisis is getting worse, I thought we might revisit a post from a couple of weeks ago.

There’s been a fair amount of talk in recent months about a “Grand Bargain.” The idea is based on the notion that tackling the debt must be policymakers’ principal goal, and involves some combination of spending cuts and tax increases in order to bring down the deficit. The efforts are heralded by the political establishment, but appear hopelessly misguided.

We remain stuck in the wrong conversation. We’re focused on debt when we should be focused on the economy. We’re exploring solutions to a problem that doesn’t exist (inflation, interest rates) and ignoring a problem that does exist (painfully high unemployment). And as Ezra Klein recently explained, this is “counterproductive” for both the economy and the deficit.

The jobs crisis is vastly more pressing than our debt problems, but it’s also, in two mostly unnoticed ways, interconnected. For one thing, a weak labor market means a high deficit. It means tax revenues come in low and social spending needs to be high. It’s very hard to begin deficit reduction in any serious way before unemployment comes down. Which means that the sooner we get unemployment under control, the sooner sustained deficit reduction can really begin.

But second, and perhaps more importantly for deficit hawks, the jobs crisis is leverage for deficit reduction. A little bit of stimulus could buy you a lot of deficit reduction. Imagine if Republicans offered Democrats a 4:1:1 deal: For every $4 of specific spending cuts over the next 12 years, they’d back $1 of tax increases and $1 of stimulus. A deficit-reduction deal that cut $3 trillion would carry $1 trillion in tax increases — so, $4 trillion in total deficit reduction — and $1 trillion in stimulus. Who’s the liberal who’d say no? And yet, that’s a big deficit reduction package. Among the biggest in our history, actually.

What Ezra is describing here is, to me, the basis for a real grand bargain. We have a short-term economic problem (high unemployment and sluggish growth) and a long-term fiscal problem (large deficits and growing Medicare costs).

Policymakers could, in theory, use this dynamic to strike a credible deal — Dems would get stimulus now to boost the economy and create jobs, and Republicans, in exchange, would get a deficit-reduction agenda for the coming years.

Fareed Zakaria talked up this approach nearly a year ago, calling it even then a “grand bargain.”

Ezra thinks the left would go for this, and I agree. In fact, I suspect the White House would accept this in a heartbeat. And even fiscal conservatives should be able to appreciate the fact that the surest way to cut the deficit in a hurry is to grow the economy and put more Americans back to work.

But none of this is even open to consideration, and no one has made any effort to put it on the negotiating table. Part of this is because Republicans are actively opposed to any measures intended to create jobs, and part of it is the result of a political establishment stuck in the Beltway Deficit Feedback Loop.

As Ezra concluded, there’s a “win-win” scenario available, which could “address both the problems and the politics, but Washington seems entirely uninterested in it.”

Maybe it’s time for that to change.

A couple of weeks ago, Jon Huntsman raised a few eyebrows when he conceded that he thinks climate change is real. Yesterday, it was just as surprising when Mitt Romney broke with Republican orthodoxy and said the same thing.

“I believe the world is getting warmer, and I believe that humans have contributed to that,” he told a crowd of about 200 at a town hall meeting in Manchester, New Hampshire.

“It’s important for us to reduce our emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases that may be significant contributors.”

I’m not sure which is worse: the fact that a basic acknowledgement of reality is considered encouraging and newsworthy, or the fact that this basic acknowledgement of reality will likely be problematic for Romney among Republican voters.

But while I’ll gladly give Romney credit for being in touch with reality, at least on this issue, the next question is what he plans to do about it. To my mind, there are basically three categories:

1. Those who deny the problem.

2. Those who recognize the problem.

3. Those who support fixing the problem.

Huntsman falls into the second category, saying that he’d like to address the climate crisis, but he opposes all of the measures that would make a difference. Romney appears to fall into the same category.

As Josh Nelson explained yesterday, Romney wants to reduce emissions (which is good), but remains “opposed to doing anything productive to solve the problem” (which is bad).

This still strikes me as the worst of all possible positions. At least the climate deniers have a good excuse for opposing solutions: they don’t see a problem and consider the evidence part of an elaborate conspiracy cooked up by communists to destroy America’s way of life.

Romney and Huntsman want to split the difference — believe the science but choose not to do anything about it.

This seems unlikely to impress anyone. Those who recognize the problem won’t care for the negligent attitude, and those who believe the problem is a “hoax” won’t care for the acknowledgement of reality.

Disgraced former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R) recently boasted that presidential campaigns as extraordinary as his are only seen “once or twice in a century.”

He may have been onto something. After all, it takes a special kind of presidential candidate to go on vacation three weeks after launching a campaign.

Weeks after launching his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has raised eyebrows among supporters and political observers by taking a vacation with his wife — during the same week prominent religious conservatives are gathering in Washington.

Gingrich, who has been married three times, has been aggressively courting the religious conservatives, including many of the “pro-marriage” activists gathering in Washington. […]

The Gingriches, [campaign spokesman Rick Tyler] said, are simply taking a long-planned leave from the pressures of the campaign.

“This was the one opportunity early in the campaign to do it,” he said. “His absence shouldn’t in any way be taken as a sign that the conference is not important. It is,” Tyler said, adding: “Everyone needs a break.”

Sure, everyone takes breaks, but Gingrich has been a candidate for three weeks. To borrow a 2008 cliche, if the former Speaker can’t even handle a month on the campaign trail without a vacation, how in the world does he expect to handle the pressure of being the president of the United States?

I mean, really. Has anyone even ever heard of a credible candidate launching a national campaign, and then deliberately walking away from the campaign trail three weeks later?

Treating this guy like a major contender for the presidency is just a bad idea.

When President Obama met with congressional Republicans this week, GOP leaders were particularly incensed about Democrats using the word “voucher” when describing the Republican plan to end Medicare. Paul Ryan and others prefer “premium support,” and consider the Dems’ rhetoric to be “demagoguery.”

There are two main problems with this rhetorical disagreement. The first is that the GOP plan really does rely on vouchers, whether the party cares for the word or not. The second is that plenty of far-right Republicans are inclined to ignore their party’s talking-point instructions.

Here, for example, was Sen. Ron Johnson (R) of Wisconsin, a Tea Party favorite, explaining one of the things he likes most about his party’s Medicare plan.

“What I like about the Paul Ryan plan is it’s trying bring a little bit of free-market principles back into Medicare.

“If you need subsidized care, we’ll give you vouchers. You figure out how you want to spend. You select what insurance carrier you want to use. It’s a start.”

It’s not just Johnson. Last week, GOP presidential hopeful Herman Cain argued, “Nobody’s talking about the fact that the centerpiece of Ryan’s plan is a voucher. Now, a lot of people don’t like to use that term because it has a negative connotation. That is what we need.” Even Fox News has referred to the Republican plan as being built around “vouchers.

If conservative Republicans are using the word, why is it outrageous when Democrats do the same thing? Are Johnson, Cain, and the Republican cable news network all secretly siding with the left?

As for the substance behind the claim, it’s worth noting that this isn’t just about semantics — the GOP claim that their scheme doesn’t include vouchers is just wrong. Paul Krugman explained yesterday:

[T]he ACA is specifically designed to ensure that insurance is affordable, whereas Ryancare just hands out vouchers and washes its hands. Specifically, the ACA subsidy system (pdf) sets a maximum percentage of income that families are expected to pay for insurance, on a sliding scale that rises with income. To the extent that the actual cost of a minimum acceptable policy exceeds that percentage of income, subsidies make up the difference.

Ryancare, by contrast, provides a fixed sum — end of story. And because this fixed sum would not grow with rising health care costs, it’s almost guaranteed to fall far short of the actual cost of insurance.

This is also why Ryancare is NOT premium support; it’s a voucher system. No matter how much they say it isn’t, that’s exactly what it is.

Given this reality, why do Republicans throw such a fit about the use of the “v” word? Because vouchers don’t poll well. For the right, the key is to come up with phrasing, no matter how deceptive, that persuades the public. If GOP leaders throw a big enough tantrum, they’re hoping everyone — Dems, pundits, reporters, even other Republicans — will use the words they like, rather than more accurate words that make the party look bad.

No one should be fooled.

First up from the God Machine this week is a little something Amy Sullivan describes as “Paul Ryan’s Ayn Rand Problem.”

The right-wing House Budget Committee chairman is well known as a Rand acolyte — he demands his staffers read her novels — but what’s less well known is that Ayn Rand was actively hostile to Christianity. The problem was ideological, not theological — Jesus touted principles such as charity and compassion towards the less fortunate, concepts Rand and her followers strongly reject. Randians believe altruism is evil and those in poverty should wait for the hand of the free market to lift them up.

With this in mind, Ryan appeared at a major religious right gathering yesterday, Ralph Reed’s Faith & Freedom Conference in D.C., and was confronted by a young man from Faithful America. The far-right Wisconsinite was asked a good question: why not base his budget plan on Biblical teachings on economic justice instead of Ayn Rand. The discussion didn’t go well:

You’ll notice in the clip that Ryan was offered a free Bible, which he didn’t want to accept. He was also urged to honor the Gospel of Luke, advice the congressman chose to ignore.

As Sullivan noted, “These days, when people question a politician’s ‘morality,’ they usually mean his or her personal behavior and choices. But an interesting thing is happening right now around the GOP budget proposal. A broad coalition of religious voices is criticizing the morality of the choices reflected in budget cuts and tax policy. And they’ve specifically targeted Ryan and his praise for Rand, the philosopher who once said she ‘promote[d] the ethic of selfishness.’”

To put it mildly, Paul Ryan doesn’t care for this discussion, which isn’t surprising. But in the bigger picture, when was the last time a Republican attended a religious right gathering and refused to accept a Bible?

Also from the God Machine this week:

* Eddie Long settles: “Georgia megachurch preacher Bishop Eddie Long has settled out of court with four young men who accused him of sexual misconduct, Long’s spokesman said Thursday.”

* “Faith-healing” parents go on trial in Oregon. I can only hope this serves as a deterrent to others.

* In Bahrain: “Bahrain’s Sunni Muslim government demolished or seriously damaged 43 Shiite Muslim mosques or religious structures during its crackdown on anti-government demonstrations, according to an official tally compiled by the state-supported endowment that oversees Shiite sacred buildings.” (thanks to R.P. for the tip)

* After some very sketchy financial mismanagement, Crystal Cathedral Ministries’ church and 40-acre campus are being sold as part of the Chapter 11 process. (thanks to J.P. for the tip)

* And Ted Haggard goes Hollywood.

To say that Mitt Romney was wrong about the American automotive industry is a dramatic understatement. Two years ago, with the industry on the verge of collapse and at least a million American jobs on the line, the former governor said Detroit should “go bankrupt,” and told a national television audience that the entire auto industry was likely “to go out of business” as a result of President Obama’s rescue strategy.

Indeed, at the time, Romney called the administration’s plan “tragic” and “a very sad circumstance for this country.” He wrote another piece in which he said Obama’s plan “would make GM the living dead.”

We now know Romney was completely wrong (even though he’s now trying to take credit for the administration’s policy he trashed at the time). Yesterday, an industry leader explained this in colorful terms.

For those who can’t watch clips online, Sergio Marchionne, chief executive of Fiat and Chrysler, was asked about Romney’s 2009 position. Marchionne told CNN in response, “Whoever told you that is smoking illegal material. That market had become absolutely dysfunctional in 2008 and 2009. There were attempts made by a variety of people to find strategic alliances with other car makers on a global scale and the government stepped in, as the actor of last resort. It had to do it because the consequences would have been just too large to deal with.”

In other words, Romney wasn’t just wrong; he was drug-addled wrong.

Indeed, Romney’s misguided approach continues to dog his campaign. He appeared on CBS’s “Early Show” yesterday and got a little testy when the subject of the auto industry came up. Given his record, I can’t say I blame Romney for wanting to avoid talking about this.

For his part, President Obama continues to see his success on this issue as something to be proud of, as evidenced by his weekly address this morning.

It’s not a bad message, and it’s worth needling Republicans for how badly they flubbed this crisis: “Today, each of the Big Three automakers — Chrysler, GM, and Ford — is turning a profit for the first time since 2004. Chrysler has repaid every dime and more of what it owes American taxpayers for their support during my presidency — and it repaid that money six years ahead of schedule…. Most importantly, all three American automakers are now adding shifts and creating jobs at the strongest rate since the 1990s…. We could have done [in 2009] what a lot of folks in Washington thought we should do — nothing. But that would have made a bad recession worse and put a million people out of work. I refused to let that happen.”

We’ve been talking quite a bit over the last two weeks about House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and his approach to federal disaster relief. Cantor and congressional Republicans have created a new standard for emergency funds: American victims of natural disasters can receive aid, but only if the relief funds are offset by budget cuts elsewhere.

Congress has never operated this way — even Tom DeLay didn’t support such an approach — but we also haven’t seen a majority-party caucus this extreme in modern history.

Yesterday, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) criticized this approach, and last night, Donald Trump weighed in.

“Representative [Eric] Cantor, who I like, said we don’t want to give money to the tornado victims,” Trump said. “And yet in Afghanistan we’re spending $10 billion a month. But we don’t want to help the people that got devastated by tornadoes. Wiped out, killed, maimed, injured — we don’t have money for them but we’re spending $10 billion a month in Afghanistan.” […]

“We’re spending billions of dollars in Iraq,” he said. “We’re spending billions of billions of dollars and we can’t help people that got flooded by the Mississippi, that got hit horribly by the tornadoes.”

To be sure, this doesn’t obscure Trump’s status as a ridiculous media buffoon. The point, though, is that the Republican position on emergency relief is becoming increasingly problematic.

Indeed, the more attention this gets, the more of a political loser it becomes. It doesn’t take much for voters to wonder why Republicans don’t hesitate to finance wars without paying for them, bailout Wall Street without paying it, and offer subsidies to oil companies without paying for them, but when an American community is devastated by a tornado, all of a sudden, the GOP is inclined to hold the funds hostage until the party gets offsetting cuts.

The Daily Show slammed Cantor’s callousness this week, too. If you haven’t seen the segment, it’s worth checking out.

Following up on an item from yesterday, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee launched an ad this week targeting New Hampshire Rep. Charlie Bass (R), noting his vote to end Medicare. The National Republican Congressional Committee decided to make this something of a test case — the party argued the Medicare claim is false and demanded that the station pull the ad from the airwaves.

Substantively, the Republicans’ claim is absurd, but if the NRCC was successful anyway, the party would use this as leverage to block the campaign speech that makes Republicans look bad elsewhere.

Late yesterday, the network announced its response to the NRCC’s demands: No.

Comcast Boston has rebuffed the NRCC’s demand that it yank an ad being run by liberal groups that attacks GOP Rep. Charlie Bass for supporting the GOP plan to “end Medicare.” The NRCC argued in a long letter that the claim is false.

“We are continuing to air the ad,” Chris Ellis, a spokesman for Comcast’s ad sales division, tells me. “We’ve reviewed the materials provided by the NRCC and the documentation provided by the advertisers, and we’ve decided that the ad does meet our guidelines.”

In fairness to the NRCC, it’s very hard to get ads pulled, and both sides try to do this all the time with little success. Comcast’s decision, however, is likely to embolden Dems to stick by their claim that the GOP plan “ends Medicare.”

In general, I’m fairly comfortable with stations declining political ads that can proven to be patently, demonstrably false. But in this case, the PCCC message is entirely fair and accurate — the plan from congressional Republicans is to end Medicare and replace it with a privatized voucher scheme. Comcast Boston made the right call.

Of course, by throwing such a fit over this, Republicans also appear to be telegraphing a weakness: the party’s polling must show that the “end Medicare” message is quite damaging or Republicans wouldn’t be fighting so hard to prevent people from hearing it.

This should lead Dems to start using the line even more.

Today’s edition of quick hits:

* Syria: “Syrians poured into the streets Friday in some of the largest antigovernment protests yet despite the shutdown of much of the country’s Internet network, which has been crucial to demonstrators’ ability to mobilize and a major source of information for those outside the country. The worst violence Friday appeared to be in the restive city of Hama, where at least 40 protesters were killed in a continuation of a brutal nationwide government crackdown that has lasted for months, according to local activists.”

* John Edwards, indicted: “Former vice presidential nominee John Edwards was indicted Friday on charges of violating federal election law for allegedly using nearly $1 million in illegal campaign donations to conceal an extramarital affair during his 2008 run for the Democratic presidential nomination. In a brief statement to reporters Friday afternoon, Edwards admitted that he has ‘done wrong’ but denied breaking the law.”

* The illness metaphor, which happens to be accurate, makes a comeback: “President Barack Obama on Friday told workers at a Chrysler plant in Toledo, Ohio, that the economy is on a bumpy ‘road to recovery,’ hours after the release of a lackluster jobs report. ‘This economy took a big hit,’ Obama said. ‘Just like if you have a bad illness … it’s going to take a while for you to mend, and that’s what’s happening to our economy.’”

* U.S. efforts in Libya are not popular on the Hill: “The House of Representatives voted Friday to harshly rebuke President Obama for continuing to maintain an American role in NATO operations in Libya without the express consent of Congress…. The resolution, which passed 268 to 145, was offered by Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio to siphon off swelling Republican support for a measure sponsored by Representative Dennis J. Kucinich.”

* Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.) is the vice-chair for finance at the National Republican Campaign Committee. Given that his auto dealership has been accused of violating election laws, maybe he should take on different responsibilities?

* Good for them: “Two senior New Hampshire Republicans in the state house resigned their leadership positions late last night, saying that they couldn’t stay in their spots after their party turned against labor unions. ‘It is evident now that pro-worker Republican views like mine are not respected under this leadership team,’ said House Deputy Majority Leader Matt Quandt, one of the two who resigned.”

* Are Canadian doctors fleeing their country to practice in the United States? Um, no.

* The Department of Education has finally issued new rules for for-profit colleges. Are they strict enough? Not even close.

* House Speaker John Boehner has agreed to go golfing with President Obama. Perhaps Fox News will take the week off from saying the president goes golfing too much, since a Republican will be with him?

Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.

In his kickoff speech yesterday, Mitt Romney used the word “European” often enough to make one wonder if he’d developed some sort of nervous tick. When it comes to politicians and uncontrollable references, Giuliani has “9/11,” Biden has “literally,” and apparently, Romney has “European.”

He’s sticking with the line today.

Mitt Romney ridiculed President Barack Obama for his “awfully European” economic policies at a town hall Friday morning, using the May unemployment report to beat up on the White House. […]

“When the Europeans were in trouble economically, they spent more money and they borrowed more money. That’s just what he did,” Romney said. “He has been awfully European. You know what? European policies don’t work there. They sure as heck aren’t going to work here.”

I like to think Romney is probably a fairly intelligent person, which is why it’s frustrating to watch him do a poor imitation of a dumb person.

Perhaps Romney is a little behind on current events — he does, after all, think we’re in “peacetime” — but Europe has been Austerity Central. European countries have slashed public investments to reduce their debts, and the results haven’t been pretty, with austerity failing to produce the intended results.

But therein lies the more salient domestic point: President Obama doesn’t want to follow the European model; Mitt Romney does.

Indeed, this is proving to be quite common. House Speaker John Boehner argued recently that the United States should follow Europe’s lead on nuclear energy. Former half-term Gov. Sarah Palin (R) said quantitative easing from the Fed must be a bad idea if Europe doesn’t like it. For News president Roger Ailes said President Obama should take his cues on monetary policy from Europe. And all kinds of Republicans, on and off Capitol Hill, have implored Democrats to adopt the budget policies of a European country.

Romney, I’m afraid, is terribly confused. There is a group of Americans who’ve been “awfully European” lately. They’re called Republicans.

It was discouraging to learn overnight about an airman being discharged from the military under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” After all, DADT repeal is well underway, and it seemed unreasonable that the Obama administration would throw qualified service-members out of the military for being gay so close to the policy’s official end. The news sparked another round of criticism from the gay-rights community of the White House.

The truth, however, is a little more complicated.

Air Force officials confirmed that an unidentified airman was dismissed under the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law earlier this year, the first such firing since defense officials effectively put a moratorium on the law in October.

However, service officials emphasized the move came at the request of the airman, who requested to be released from military service despite the imminent repeal of the law banning openly gay troops.

“In this instance, the airman first class made a statement that he was a homosexual,” Air Force spokesman Maj. Joel Harper said Friday. “After making the statement but prior to the commander initiating separation action, the airman wrote the secretary of the Air Force asking to be separated.

“After the separation action was initiated, the individual was informed of the current status of the repeal of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ and he reaffirmed to the [Air Force secretary] that he desired his separation action be expeditiously processed.”

By all appearances, this airman, for whatever reason, simply wanted out of the military. He was offered a chance to keep serving, and asked to be removed anyway. Indeed, since October, this one individual is literally the only person to have been dismissed from the military because of sexual orientation.

Clearly, the sooner the DADT policy is brought to an official end, the better. But to characterize this incident as a betrayal from the administration appears to be an unfair criticism.

Former half-term Gov. Sarah Palin (R) brought her “One Nation” bus tour to Boston yesterday, and visited the historic Old North Church. She then offered her own unique understanding of Paul Revere and his role in American history.

For those who can’t watch clips from your work computers, Palin told reporters about Revere, “He who warned, uh, the British that they weren’t gonna be takin’ away our arms, uh, by ringin’ those bells and, um, makin’ sure as he’s ridin’ his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that, uh, we were gonna be secure and we were gonna be free. And we were gonna be armed.”

For the record, Palin did not appear to be kidding.

In case anyone needs a refresher, Tim Murphy explained, “This is actually the opposite of everything Paul Revere did.”

He wasn’t sending any messages to the British soldiers who were about to move on the patriots’ weapons stockpiles and arrest key leaders. According to history, Revere was warning the Minutemen that the Brits were coming so these militia members could prepare. He did not ring any bellls. He instructed a friend to put either one or two lights in the tower of the Old North Church (“one if by land, two if by sea”). He did not fire any warning shots. His ride at the time was no act of symbolism; it was a stealth operation in support of a local resistance movement whose goals at that point remained largely undefined.

A couple of months ago, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) told New Hampshire voters, “You’re the state where the shot was heard around the world in Lexington and Concord.” It was one of the more absurd comments about colonial history from a prominent, national figure in quite a while.

Palin’s quote, it seems to me, is much worse.

Update: Reader N.B. has encouraged me to note that Revere was captured by the British officers after his ride and he told them the colonists had been warned. Palin’s description of events, most notably the historic ride, is still quite wrong.

This year, congressional Republicans have created a new standard for disaster relief funds. They’re willing to aid American communities suffering after a natural disaster, but only if the emergency funds are offset by budget cuts elsewhere.

Congress has never operated this way — even Tom DeLay didn’t support such an approach — but we also haven’t seen a majority-party caucus this extreme in modern history.

It comes as a pleasant surprise, then, to see a prominent Republican leader argue publicly that his party is wrong about this.

Governor Haley Barbour (R-Miss.) broke with his own party’s leadership in the House of Representatives on Friday, arguing that Congress should not offset money appropriated for disaster relief.

Speaking to reporters after his speech at the Faith and Freedom conference, Barbour argued that money to respond to natural disasters was both inherently unpredictable in its amount and immediate in its need.

“I think disaster relief is not predictable,” Barbour said. “Emergencies caused by tornadoes, hurricanes are not predictable. Even if Congress — which as far as I know they never have — set aside a pot of money as some have proposed, and said, ‘Okay, this is money we’re going to use to pay for disaster relief’ — if they were to do that and we had a gigantic disaster that cost much more than that, surely Congress would come back and appropriate the extra money. And if they didn’t have a place to offset it, they should still go in and do it.”

Well, sure. Of course they should. The problem is that congressional Republicans have been so twisted by an extremist ideology, their priorities have been skewed.

Barbour, it’s worth noting, is not an entirely disinterested observer. His home state of Mississippi is frequently threatened by hurricanes — and last year, oil spills — so Barbour has an interest in looking after his state. I can hope other Republican governors, from states that aren’t routinely confronted with natural disasters, would feel the same way, but we don’t know that for sure.

Regardless, Eric Cantor and others pushing this line deserve to feel some heat over their callousness, and it’s heartening that Barbour, a former RNC chairman and party big-shot, arguing against his party’s position.

For two months, Democrats have said, “Republicans intend to scrap Medicare and replace it with a privatized voucher scheme.” And for two months, Republicans, PolitiFact, and much of the media have responded, “Maybe, but you’re not allowed to say ‘end.’”

Greg Sargent reports on the latest twist in this ongoing fight, though this one may have broader consequences than just rhetorical squabbling.

Attention, people, this is important: The battle over whether it’s true that the Republican plan would “end Medicare” is about to play out in a critical way in New Hampshire.

The National Republican Congressional Committee, which oversees House races for the GOP, has written a sharply-worded letter demanding that a New Hampshire TV station yank an ad making that claim. Whether the ad gets taken down could help set a precedent for whether other stations will air Dem TV ads making this argument, which is expected to be a central message for Dems in the 2012 elections.

The NRCC letter was provided to me by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which is airing the ad on WMUR against GOP Rep. Charlie Bass.

There’s no real mystery here. The more Democrats use the word “end” — a verb first used to describe the Republican plan by Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal, by the way — the more damaging it is to the GOP. If Republicans can throw a big enough tantrum, and get stations to block campaign speech that uses the “e” word, then it might provide the GOP a layer of protection.

And if Comcast Boston backs down to the National Republican Congressional Committee now, the party will use this as precedent to get other channels to do the same.

The problem, of course, is that the Republican argument is ridiculous.

I realize that semantics debates can get pretty tiresome, but this need not be complicated. If there’s a government program, and it’s replaced with a different program, proponents brought an end to the original program. That’s what the verb means.

Medicare is a single-payer health care system offering guaranteed benefits to seniors. The House Republican plan intends to do away with the existing system and replace it with vouchers. It would still be called “Medicare,” but it wouldn’t be Medicare.

Paul Krugman recently explained, “When you transform a program that pays seniors’ medical bills into a program that gives them a voucher that almost certainly isn’t enough to buy adequate insurance, you can call the new scheme Medicare, but it isn’t the same program…. Republicans are proposing to destroy Medicare; saying that clearly isn’t scare tactics, it’s simply pointing out the truth.”

It’s a truth the GOP is desperate to keep from the public. Test Case #1 will apparently be in New Hampshire.