We’re doomed. We’re so doomed. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), the author of the end-of-life provisions that somehow miraculously found their way into the House’s final health care bill, describes the insane process through which the ridiculous “death panel” lie was concocted and inflated and repeated. It says so much about the sorry state of our political process, the Republican party and the pathetic news media that such a lie can become fact in the minds of so many misinformed Americans.

The “death panel” episode shows how the news media, after aiding and abetting falsehood, were unable to perform their traditional role of reporting the facts. By lavishing uncritical attention on the most exaggerated claims and extreme behavior, they unleashed something that the truth could not dispel.

There was a troubling new dynamic: People like Senator Chuck Grassley, a Iowa Republican, were now parroting these falsehoods in their town meetings and letting it drive their policy decisions. (Mr. Grassley: “We should not have a government program that determines if you’re going to pull the plug on Grandma.”) When the most extreme elements peddling false information can cow senior members of Congress into embracing their claims, it does not bode well for either policymaking or for the Republican Party.