Howard Kurtz and his colleagues should spend less time musing about why the traditional media have failed to persuade Americans that they should surrender their bodies to the government, and more time getting to know some real people.

Somewhere between L.A. and D.C., they’ll find folks whose life experience, grasp of history, common sense understanding of economics, clear-headed rational thought, and healthy distrust of politicians lead them to accept the logical conclusion that government-run health care will strip individual autonomy and place our most intimate, important decisions into the clutches of a bureaucracy that doesn’t share our values and from which we cannot opt out.

Sarah Palin’s brilliant, succinct term “death panels” hits home because it neatly summarizes all that’s wrong with government-run health care. Superficial efforts by reporters to “debunk the death panel myth” will continue to fail, because Americans are smarter than most journalists when it comes to practical matters of life.

Journalism professionals would also benefit from reading some American history, including our founding documents.