I've said it before. Joe Klein is saying it. Paul Begala is saying it. Even Max Baucus seems to be facing facts. Hell, Minority Whip John Kyl is up-front about it.
The Republicans are not interested in passing health care reform. At all. As their de facto leader made crystal clear today, they don't really care about the health care needs of Americans, anyway.
It would be lovely if a truly bipartisan health care reform bill could emerge from the miasma that surrounds Capitol Hill. It would also be lovely if my infant son would sleep through the night. And change his own diapers. And cook me dinner.
Not going to happen. (And Chuck Grassley, you can take your demand for 80 votes in the Senate and, in the immortal words of Homer Simpson, cram it with walnuts. Because I remember how assiduously your party sought "true" bipartisanship when you were in the majority.) Time to call it like it is, friends. If the Democrats want health care reform, they're going to have to do it themselves, and all that happy-clappy horse dung about bipartisanship can go the way of the dodo.
On that note, it's also time for the rubber to meet the road and for the Democrats to actually craft a bill and pass it. As Gadfly John is all too happy to point out, we have 60 votes in the Senate and a healthy majority in the House. It's now or never, troops.
Update: Also, what these guys said.
Update the Second: Also, this.
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The Rs are offering as much bipartisanship on healthcare reform as the Ds offered on Social Security reform, which is to say, none. Politics in the US have passed the dysfunctional stage long ago.
ReplyDeleteIt would be lovely if a truely serious, thoughtful, compassionate, intelligent bill were to come out of DC. The odds of that happening are aboutt the same as Dan's infant son winning the Nobel Peace Prize this year, which is to say the odds are indistinguishable from zero.
Having said that, I do hope the Ds try to pass something, because the rifts are deep within the Ds, and the blood will run freely in the streets (metaphorically speaking, of course) from D on D infighting. Should anything pass, I'm certain the Rs will proceed to beat the Ds about the head and shoulders for the next 3.34 years with the bludgeon of healthcare votes.
Oh, and I forgot, pass the popcorn. Nothing I like better than seeing arrogant, elitist pols paint themselves in a corner. The Ds alone own this problem, and the Ds alone will live with the outcome for decades. If they can't do better than their aptly named Clunkers program or the CPSIA banning children's books, well, the Ds are going to have a looooong sojorn in the minority wilderness beginning about 2010.
ReplyDeleteYou mean that incredibly successful "cash for clunkers" program? Yeah, I hope it turns out about as well.
ReplyDeleteAnd you like watching arrogant, elitist pols paint themselves into a corner? Great! I like watching ignorant, incompetent morons destroy the country, which is what he got for the whole damn Bush administration.
Oh, wait. No. No, I didn't enjoy watching that at all.
Oh yeah, C4C is great, I enjoy funding the auto purchases of millionaires like erstwhile Sen. Frist. Don't you? I hear the car dealers are happy as clams too, since they aren't getting paid. The super competent Obama Admin understaffed C4C, the Congress underestimated the demand. Yeah, it has been "incredibly successful."
ReplyDeleteAnd if you think the Bush Admin destroyed the country, imagine what the GITMO-running, terrorist renditioning, don't ask don't tell, wiretapping, hold prisoners indefinitely, flying drones around just airbombing villagers Obama Administration will do! Yes! Hope and Change, baby. Hope and Change. Or not.
Yawn.
ReplyDeleteIsn't it interesting how all of a sudden rendition isn't such a great moral failure, wiretapping American citizens is not Constitution-shredding, bombing civilian villiages isn't a moral outrage. Pointing this out elicts nothing but a yawn from those who so recently thought these actions were destroying the country. Hey, no one expects consistency, right?
ReplyDelete