Just Pass It With Reconcilliation Already And Get On With It
I’ve not had much to say this week and I apologize. General and personal matters have consumed this week and I’ve tried to keep up on Twitter. The family has begun gathering from all points on the east coast for my uncle’s funeral service tomorrow, but I’ll try to get back into the swing of things Sunday morning. My only comments politically would be with regards to the health care reform summit. Whether you feel there is virtue in this or not, the health care reform summit yesterday only proved that Republican calls for bipartisanship and “starting over” should ring on hollow ears. It was the Republicans themselves that pilloried the President for weeks for going back on his pledge to televise the negotiations for a health care reform bill. When the President called their bluff, they reverted to calling the same televised negotiations that they had begged for “political theater.” The supposed “liberal” media took the republican framing and ran with it. Despite the warming of the Republican moderates with regards to the President’s jobs bill, no Republican will work with any compromise with the President or risk a wing-nut Tea Party challenger in the fall. No change or tweak at this point is going to bring over one single republican vote. Just pass what can be passed with reconcilliation and move on with it.
Related posts:
- The Discussion Has Become Impossible
- Bipartisanship Takes Two To Tango
- I’m Sick Of The Health Care Reform Argument
- Health Care Reform Enters The Red Zone
- The Political Realities Of A Scott Brown Win Tonight
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The pledge to televise negotiations was dumb, because backroom deals and the like are how bills get passed. That the Republicans took advantage of Obama’s silly rhetoric was just good politics. So Obama tried to thorw it back at them and look like the reasonable statesman, and he failed by all accounts. And really, who was taking this seriously at all? Obama rolled out an alternate bill while Democratic leadership in the Senate was talking about reconcilliation on the current bill in the leadup. It was obviously poltiical theatre. There’s not some collusion on proper spin between the Republicans and and the scare-quoted liberal media.
Also, another option would be to shelve the bill rather than pass it with reconcilliation. I don’t think there are the votes in the House to pass it anyway, so if they want to go ahead and piss more people off, I don’t mind.