Dick apologizes to his reader for yet another absence. It has been a very discouraging summer for all kinds of reasons, not the least of which is the unravelling of the Obama project south of the border. Anyone not infected with the Repugnican swine virus can only look upon the spectacle being played out in so-called town halls across the States, and despair. Is there no more feckless a thing than the Democratic party, which postures about bringing change, but which, stinking of insurance money, melts like ice in August in the face of hate-spewing thugs and racists?
One must question how a nation like the United States, where most polls routinely put support for a "public option" (which would provide health insurance for those unable to obtain it in the private market) at 70%, has managed to cower before the stupidest and loudest of its people, people who in almost any other nation would be objects of eye-rolling and derision, people who clearly seem to be off their meds. Charles Blow had the right diagnosis for them in the New York Times: "Hateful people are loud — to disguise their cowardice and shame."
If Obama jettisons the public option, his health bill will end up being an abortion, and he will risk falling into what characterized Clinton after he got mired in the health care bog—a period without much focus (albeit one in which the economy largely boomed), characterized by little initiatives and PR-schtick (a bridge to the 21st century, anyone?)—in short, boutique progressivism. Obama needs to stop Kumbaya-ing the right wing crazies and move ahead. After all the spectacle of the last six months, does he honestly think he can achieve the Holy Grail of bipartisanship with a Republican party whose leadership speaks of death panels and churns out lie after lie, such as Stephen Hawking being euthanized by the National Health Service in Britain?
The Repugnicans, since losing last November, do not deserve any longer to be treated as serious players in the health care debate, or any other issue for that matter. The party has degenerated to little more than a festering cyst, like the one on Rush Limbaugh's ass—you know, the one that prevented him from becoming a Vietnam war hero. It's time for Obama to move on, and leave these spittle-flecked mouth breathers at the side of the road, where they belong.
