In a personal and exceedingly well reasoned piece, Time‘s Joe Klein nails the prevailing cravenness, hypocrisy and nihilism of the modern GOP’s fact-free fight against health care reform, asserting, among other things, that the Republican party’s putative intellectuals — people like the Weekly Standard‘s William Kristol — are “prosaic tacticians who make precious few substantive arguments but oppose health care reform mostly because passage would help Barack Obama’s political prospects.” He also reminds readers that the same people who help stoke fears of an air-quote government takeover of health care previously tried to enforce a government takeover of Terri Schiavo’s end-of-life decisions, and that when Sarah Palin floated the “death panel” canard, the number of prominent Republicans who rose up to call her out could be counted on one hand.