Obama's a Bad-Ass

Almost forgot this Truth. Took over a year for it to emerge or re-emerge as the case might be. More of this please.

What Obama should say tonight

Pass. The. Damn. Bill.

And any speech that fails to make this point Loud and Clear will be a failure.

Lessons Learned

So let me see if I understand this correctly:

1. In November 2008 the nation gave Democrat Barack Obama 53% of the popular vote, a pretty big electoral vote, too, and won states such as Indiana, North Carolina, and Virginia, that Democrats haven't won since Andrew Jackson.

2. The other side responded to this by angrily stamping its collective foot, shouting No, No, No, sending its mobs out to disrupt discussion and yell at town hall meetings and on CNNMSNBCFOX "news", and generally voting in unison against even a watered down stimulus bill and health care reform bills in both houses of Congress.

3. This strategery essentially works. Only a one-third tax cut stimulus bill passes with two Republican Senate votes. Health care passes with no Republican votes. The other side wins gubernatorial elections in NJ and VA and a special senatorial election in MA.

4. The political class, including DLC'er, failed Tennessee Senatorial candidate now NY Senate carpetbagger candidate Harold Ford in this spectacularly shi$ty op-ed piece, declare that as a result of these three elections that Democrats must now bow down graciously and do whatever the new political mood demands.

But if the lesson is that elections don't mean anything because the best path back to political power for the minority is to yell, scream, disrupt and vote No, No, No, doesn't this then also imply that the election losers in NJ, VA and now MA should also in turn adopt a No, No, No strategery?

Conservatives were in their right, of course, to react as they did to Obama's election, in this an open, democratic society.

But this political class should also understand the meaning of "What you sow, that shall you also reap."

Conservatives and their disgruntlees have sowed the wind and will reap the whirlwind. Expect cooperation now? No fackin way.

The Republicans' 178-256 Majority, Part I

You might not know it, but Democrats control the House of Representatives with 256 votes (218 constituting a majority of the 435-member chamber). And yet, 256 votes notwithstanding, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she doesn't have the votes to pass the Senate's health care reform bill. This would be a critical move towards health care reform because it would avoid another Senate vote, which thanks to last week's Massachusett's Senate special election, no longer contains a filibuster-proof, 60 vote supermajority.

But even with a 38-vote majority House Democrats still can't pull themselves together to pass a bill that expands Medicaid and prohibits insurance companies from disqualifying people for pre-existing conditions.

This is just some very sorry crapola. It means that the Democratic Party's governing majority is dysfunctional and non-existent.

In Part II of this series I will expound upon some reasons why the Democrats, despite their clear House majority, can't pass health care reform.

Update: Andrew Sullivan has several posts calling for the Democratic House Majority to Pass. The. Damn. Bill.