You just cannot make this stuff up

Sarah Palin closed out her opening remarks by quoting Ronald Reagan about how "freedom is always just one generation away from extinction." Stirring stuff.

Paul Krugman has the quote's context: a 1961 campaign against Medicare, which would destroy the nation, so that "we’re going to find ourselves spending our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children about a time in America, back in the day, when men and women were free."

Seriously. Medicare was going to destroy the country, Reagan's words were opposing it, and Palin blithely quotes him... in the middle of a health-care crisis.

No, you just can't make it up.