The Sunshine Empire

They said it was dead. I was convinced the public option was dead, but let’s be honest about the political reality of the situation. Republican’s disingenuous claims of wanting to work with Democrats on reform is what really caused the resurrection of the public option.

When the current debate over health care reform began earlier this year Republicans expressed the willingness to work with congressional Democrats in a bipartisan manner. As the Washington Monthly noted (via Think Progress), former House Minority Whip Rep. Roy Blunt guaranteed that Republicans would have a counter bill to offer for health care reform. They have yet to do so and more than likely have no intention of doing so. Sadly the “liberal” media has not pointed out such an unmet promise from Republicans who claim that they are being shut out, and then vote party line against any single bill or amendment after getting concessions. Even some House Republicans are concerned about the no to everything strategy put forward by the orange House Minority Leader. Yet when one Republican Senator does nothing more than vote to allow a bill to go to the full Senate for debate, she is eviscerated by the conservative intelligentsia as a weak willed traitor. All of this makes the effort to get Republican support a fools errand.

The Republican effort against health care reform has always been about standing and preventing a signature piece of legislation that Obama can take credit for, even to the detriment of the national good. Republicans often childishly claimed that Iraq war protestations were merely liberals hoping for an American defeat for their own political gain. What the Republicans have done for the better part of this year is nothing different in reality. Republicans foolishly believe that history repeats itself after glancing over a history of the early 1990′s. Yet as Mark Twain once said, “History doesn’t repeat itself, it rhymes.” The American people have proved that they can be fooled, but rarely the same way twice. The playing field is much different than it was in the age of Clinton, and Republicans simply standing in the way of health care reform just for Obama’s sake is seen for exactly what it is by the American people.

There were sugar plum fantasies dancing in the heads of Republicans and teabag-tards all across the fruited plain after the August of childish town hall screaming, but what did it result in? After the August histrionics, support for the President and the public option increased and is still growing. Yet the President and Democrats in congress courted Sen. Olympia Snowe by removing the public option from the Senate Finance bill, but that was still not enough to keep Republican senators from going on television and keeping up the insane death rhetoric and “government takeover” buzzwords. Finally congressional Democrats have come to their senses regarding this issue. The public option is back in but it was Republicans that put it there in reality. As Political Wire notes, Joe Wilson’s childishness has really allowed Democrats to proceed on their own, because the country is waking up to the fact that congressional Republicans are guided by nothing other than Obama derangement syndrome.

The Democrats have the votes in the Senate to end debate and get that precious up or down vote that Republicans said was so important four years ago during the judiciary debate. Republicans have been given their chance and they’ve cast their lot. To continue wooing would be a fools errand.