First off, great big tip o' the hat to JamieG from MD, who diaried Thompson's jaw-dropping speechifying earlier today. I'm re-diarying because this needs more attention!

Here's Wisconsin Senate candidate Tommy Thompson with a friendly audience, speaking to a meeting of the Lake Country Area Defenders Of Liberty in Oconomowoc, WI on

May 4, 2012:

[Note 9/24/12: I have replaced the originally-embedded video with a better-synched version (h/t brinmat). The original, poorly-synched version may be found here.]

TRANSCRIPT:

... be able to take away the litigation that the trial lawyers are doing, so that doctors don't have to keep doing extra things to protect themselves from getting sued, which drives up our costs; change Medicare and Medicaid like I did welfare -- and who better than me, who's already finished one of the entitlement programs, to come up with programs to do away with Medicaid and Medicare? Let's block-grant what the state has, and allow the states to determine what's going to go into Medicaid. And Medicare, let's wait until everyone that's right now under 55 reaches 55 by age [sic] 2020, and give them a choice whether they want to purchase health insurance with a subsidy from the federal government, or stay on Medicare. I'm here to tell you, when you look at the situation nobody's going to accept it, because Medicare's going broke by the year 2022.

Yes, he actually said that. Programs to. He didn't even add "as we know it." Block grants and vouchers -- outlining the same attack that's in the Ryan plan, even before Ryan was anointed as Romney's running mate.

The audience listened without a murmur.

What a contrast to Paul Ryan's appearance at the AARP Life @ 50+ event today!

Today, when Paul Ryan said at an AARP meeting that Medicare's going broke (just like Tommy did), audience members hollered out, "You Lie!!"

When Ryan described, in weaselly positive-spin words, his plan to privatize and voucherize Medicare (exactly what Tommy was outlining) -- the angry crowd alternated between silence and loud boos.

Just imagine how the crowd would have reacted if Ryan had used Thompson's words?

[P]rograms to do away with Medicaid and Medicare

More thoughts beyond the cheddar swirl...