Sarah Palin Tells the Angry Mob to Calm Down

Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska and the former candidate for vice president of the United States, has a message for the incensed protesters of President Obama's proposed health care reform: Chill out.

After witnessing a spate of confrontational, sometimes violent, exchanges at town-hall meetings, Palin posted the following statement on her Facebook page (Via Ben Smith):

"There are many disturbing details in the current bill that Washington is trying to run through Congress, but we must stick to a discussion of the issues and not get sidetracked by tactics that can be accused of leading to intimidation or harassment," Palin wrote. "Such tactics diminish our nation's civil discourse, which we need now more than ever because the fine print in this outrageous health care proposal must be understood clearly and not get lost in conscientious voters' passion to want to make elected officials hear what we are saying. Let's not give the proponents of nationalized health care any reason to criticize us."

But Palin did exactly that on Friday by suggesting that Obama's new health care plan would result in the creation of a "death panel" that could, in theory, deny medical care to children with Down syndrome. As ABC's Jake Tapper points out, that claim seems to be a fictional creation, more likely to incite mob behavior rather than tamp it down.