Well, no matter what happens for the rest of Obama's presidency, he passed health care reform, something that absolutely needed to happen and has needed to happen for many decades. A few notes:
- Maligned as she is, Nancy Pelosi deserves a ton of credit for doing what a party leader in Congress is supposed to do- whip the caucus and get stuff passed.
- Even moreso, I credit Obama for not giving up, and falling into the post-Scott Brown concern troll trap of "take a few months off, and then go for a bipartisan solution." They used to say Clinton managed 8 years in office without any major legislative accomplishments; they'll never say that about Obama.
- Speaking of Clinton, Dee Dee Myers gave a CNN interview over the weekend in which she threw out the "people want to have a beer with him. They're just not sure he wants to have a beer with them" cliche. She also urged that Obama "take a page out of the Clinton political playbook"- you mean the playbook that wasn't able to pass health care?
- Then there's the disgraceful group of angry buffoons known as the Tea Party movement, who plunged to a nadir the day before the vote, when some of them shouted the n-word at Congressman and civil rights giant John Lewis. Do they conceive of what it means to be an angry, all-white mob, spitting and shouting the n-word at John Lewis? Do they know what historical legacy they're invoking?
Yes, it's just a few bad apples. Many, many, many bad apples, that show up at every single event and give most of the speeches. Screw them. Like Jon Stewart said, it's not "tyranny." It's "losing."
- And how about a legal challenge? It's nice to see the GOP is now in favor of "activist judges."
Posted by Stephen Silver at March 22, 2010 09:01 PM