Throughout the health reform debate, GOP lawmakers have tried desperately to smear health reform with increasingly bizarre and extreme remarks. In an interview on Monday, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) added to the hyperbole, comparing the House Democrats’ efforts to pass healthcare reform legislation to a Japanese kamikaze mission. “Nancy Pelosi, I think, has got them all liquored up on sake and you know, they’re making a suicide run here,” Graham said.

Picking up on Graham’s theme, Glenn Beck today similarly smeared health reform as the attack on Pearl Harbor. On his radio show, Beck intoned that reform “is like Pearl Harbor” because “people will wake up” to the “battle”:

BECK: The second thing is to prepare yourself. This is a battle. Health care is a battle. It’s a battle — it’s not the war. It’s a battle. Believe me, if you are a group that has values and principles, and you are peaceful, your power is about to go through the roof, not through the floor. Because people are — this event is like Pearl Harbor. It will wake people up and they’ll go, “wait, wait, wait. What did they just do?”

Listen here:

Blasting Graham’s remarks, Rep. Mike Honda (D-CA) — a Japanese American who was interned in a prison camp during World War II because of his heritage — said he was “disheartened” that the South Carolina senator “chose racially tinged rhetoric to express his opposition to health care reform.” He added, “there is a way to engage in healthy debate without alienating Asian Americans, who are an important part of this democracy and healthcare reform.”

Disregarding Honda’s plea for a substantive and nonracial health reform debate, Graham explained that his “comments really reflect the fanaticism of the Democratic leadership. I don’t know whether it’s sake or moonshine but no sober person would do this.” “For the senator to add ‘moonshiners’ to an already unsavory sake and suicide statement does a disservice to the underlying issue,” Honda replied in a statement. “I question who has, in fact — to use the senator’s words — lost their political mind.”

In his recent testimony (pdf) before the Senate Armed Services Committee, CENTCOM chief Gen. David Petraeus stated that “insufficient progress toward a comprehensive Middle East peace” is among the “issues that serve as major drivers of instability, inter-state tensions, and conflict.” Today, the Anti-Defamation League released a statement accusing Gen. Petraeus of error:

The assumptions Gen. Petraeus presented to the Senate Armed Services Committee wrongly attribute “insufficient progress” in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and “a perception of U.S. favoritism for Israel” as significantly impeding the U.S. military mission in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan and in dealing with the Iranian influences in the region. It is that much more of a concern to hear this coming from such a great American patriot and hero.

The General’s assertions lead to the illusory conclusion that if only there was a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the U.S. could successfully complete its mission in the region.

Gen. Petraeus has simply erred in linking the challenges faced by the U.S. and coalition forces in the region to a solution of the Israeli-Arab conflict, and blaming extremist activities on the absence of peace and the perceived U.S. favoritism for Israel. This linkage is dangerous and counterproductive.

Whenever the Israeli-Arab conflict is made a focal point, Israel comes to be seen as the problem. If only Israel would stop settlements, if only Israel would talk with Hamas, if only Israel would make concessions on refugees, if only it would share Jerusalem, everything in the region would then fall into line.

This is a clear misrepresentation of what Gen. Petraeus said. Petraeus offered his professional military opinion — shared by many others, including the 2006 Iraq Study Group — that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a key driver of instability in the Middle East, and that working toward a resolution to the conflict is an essential U.S. national security interest. The ADL offered no facts to dispute this conclusion.

Ret. General John J. Sheehan, former Supreme Allied Commander for NATO, testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee today on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT), arguing against repeal. Sheehan argued that repeal should not occur unless the review of the policy shows that a change would improve the U.S. military with no net-negative consequences.

Committee Chairman Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) asked Sheehan whether he had heard any complaints about unit cohesion or morale in his experience with NATO allies who have integrated forces. Sheehan not only said that he did, but he said that having openly gay men and women serve could affect combat cohesion. Singling out the Dutch military’s response to the Srebrenica genocide by the Serbs in 1995, Sheehan said that the Netherlands’ allowance of gay men and women to serve openly actually played a role in the massacre:

SHEEHAN: The case in point that I’m referring to was when the Dutch were required to defend Sbrenecia against the Serbs, the battalion was understrength, poorly led. And the Serbs came into town, handcuffed the soldiers to the telephone polls, marched the Muslims off and executed them. That was the largest massacre in Europe since World War II.

LEVIN: And did the Dutch leaders tell you it was because there were gay soldiers there?

SHEEHAN: It was a combination –

LEVIN: Did they tell you that?

SHEEHAN: Yes.

LEVIN: That’s my question.

SHEEHAN: They included that as part of the problem.

LEVIN: That there were gay soldiers among the Dutch force.

SHEEHAN: The combination was the liberalization of the military, the net effect of basically social engineering.

Later in the hearing, former Air Force Major Michael Almy — who had been discharged because of DADT — cited his experience with the Dutch army, describing their integration of openly gay soldiers as a “non-issue.” Levin also disputed Sheehan’s charge that gay men and women were not great fighters and contributed to the genocide:

LEVIN: I think we all remember Srebrenica. But I think that any effort to connect the failure on the part of Dutch to the fact that they have homosexuals or did allow homosexuals I think is totally off target. And I’ve seen no suggestion of that, I’ve seen the failures that you talk about general, that their training being peacekeeping and not being trained to do the combat work that needed to be done is accurate. In terms of any attribution to the fact that they have allowed gays in the military is no more on point than the fact that they may have allowed Dutch Africans or women, if there were women. [...]

They were trained to be peacekeepers, not peace enforcers. I totally agree with that. But to slip over, slide over from that into a suggestion that it had something to do with the fact that homosexuals were allowed in the Dutch army suggests that somehow or other homosexuals are not great fighters. And I think that’s totally wrong.

Watch it:

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) also disputed Sheehan’s argument that integrated foreign militaries were somehow less combat ready, citing the British force, which has served alongside U.S. servicemembers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Srebrenica genocide was the largest mass murder in Europe since World War II. In July 1995, over 7,000 Bosnian Muslims by the Bosnian Serb Army. A force of 450 Dutch soldiers, serving as U.N. peacekeepers, were unable to prevent the massacre, but that had nothing to do with the fact that their force was integrated.

– Nick McClellan

Earlier today, the Congressional Budget Office released a preliminary analysis of the health care reform reconciliation package, concluding that it would cost $940 billion over 10 years, reduce the deficit by $138 billion over 10 years and by $1.2 trillion over 20 years. Republicans, however, are either dismissing the numbers or asserting that the report shows that health care reform is not “gonna save the taxpayers’ money.”

On CNN today, RNC Chairman Michael Steele — who has previously said he doesn’t “do policy” — took a page out of Rep. Joe Wilson’s (R-SC) book and directly accused the CBO of lying:

STEELE: Can you just give me an honest number, Rick? How much do you really, legitimately think, adding, using the president’s number, 30 million people to a health care system that you just said doesn’t work is going to cost the American taxpayer? How much you think it’s really gonna? $940 billion dollars over ten years. So, you telling me an additional $940 billion dollars a year is going to make all of our problems go away?

SANCHEZ: According to the calculations that we did and according to the calculations the Democrats are announcing today, it’s going to save in the deficit for the United States citizens $1.2 trillion. Do you believe that’s not true?

STEELE: Ok, can I, I got two words for you — three words, three words.

SANCHEZ: Go, go.

STEELE: That’s a lie.

When Sanchez pointed out that Steele is “arguing with the CBO,” Steele responded by saying, “let me tell you about the CBO.” “Since they’ve been taken down to the woodshed at the White House last year, you can’t believe the numbers,” said Steele. “CBO is only as good as what you put into it.” “You’re saying the president of the United States is corrupted the CBO with a personal phone call or visit?” asked Sanchez. Steele then backtracked a bit, claiming that he was “just saying that, look, this whole process has not worked on behalf of the American people.” Watch it:

This isn’t the first time Steele has accused President Obama of intimidating the CBO into changing its numbers. In December, cited a July 2009 meeting at the White House with CBO head Douglas Elmendorf and other economists — which he said was the Obama taking Elemendorf “to the woodshed” — to dismiss a positive CBO score for health care legislation. “All of a sudden they’re getting these numbers that fall right within the framework of what they’re trying to do,” said Steele. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs called Steele’s claim “delusional.”

Additionally, it’s odd that Steele says “you can’t believe the numbers” ever since that July 2009 meeting because Steele and the RNC have cited CBO numbers since then to support their arguments. In fact, as recently as March 5, the RNC invoked the CBO to criticize Obama’s proposed bank fee.