Tuesday Stuff (updates)

Posting is questionable for tomorrow, by the way...

So if it turns out that the great big, super-duper, wonderlicious compromise that might make President Snowe come on board (though she won't, of course) and stop the dripping sanctimony of Holy Joe Lieberman is to dump the public option in favor of expanding Medicare coverage to anyone 55 or older (here), I have two questions: 1) Why the hell didn't we decide to do that all along, and 2) What the hell will anyone under 55 do who won't be covered by a for-profit insurance carrier?

If this is what "hopey, changey" health care reform looks like, then we should prepare to get hammered in the 2010 midterm elections (ugh)...

Update 1 12/9/09: To me, kos is a pretty reliable barometer on how the "netroots" responds to how the Dems perform (or not perform in this case) on key legislation on behalf of core constituencies. And as he says here, there's no way to sugarcoat this - prepare for "Clinton II" in terms of divided government next year after the midterms.

This is ugly, ugly, ugly, and Obama and the Dems have only themselves to blame.

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Update 2 12/9/09: And as I read this, another reason occurred to me as to why, for the most part, the Democratic politicians we support are essentially clueless.

Here’s a thought – maybe instead of leaking out some details to our corporate media first, who are going to spin this every negative way possible, how about letting bloggers know first so we take a shot at explaining the details? I don’t know how many people have noticed this, but the AP, Reuters and other services have been tripping all over themselves for the most part on the wonky policy minutiae of this story in particular. This way, we could help with the “rollout” instead of scratching our heads along with everyone else saying “WTF?”

Say what you want about the Repugs and the right-wing media echo chamber, but they know this and they know how to use all kinds of media to get their message out, even if we don’t do it as consistently as they do (of course, the fact that their messages are largely bogus is a wholly other matter).

Update 3 12/9/09: I should probably complete this little monologue of mine within this post by noting that it suddenly occurred to me why Reid & co. would want to let pieces of this “reform” legislation dribble out a bit at a time and not use the bloggers, and that’s because what they’ve concocted is such a stinking dead dog of a bill that we would recognize that right away and call them on it.

(“Grab a mop” – please.)

Update 4 12/9/09: For what it's worth, I'm halfway between the reasoning of this and the fury of this (slim hope is here on the "90 percent" requirement in the amendment from Al Franken).

Update 5 12/10/09: This New York Times editorial answers some of my questions, but again, the details haven't been finalized yet.

..."Worst Persons" (Bret Stephens of the Murdoch Street Journal sort of, not really...but then again, yeah, really...calls those who acknowledge the plainly obvious scientific fact of global warming "Stalinists" - then I guess that makes deniers "stupidists"?; those undeveloped life forms at Fix Noise rely on a Rasmussen poll stating that 120 percent of those polled believe that scientists falsified their numbers on global warming - obviously, those polled never saw that scene in "The Producers" where Gene Wilder tells Zero Mostel, after Mostel as Max Bialystock sold about 100,000 percent of stock in "Springtime for Hitler" to the little old ladies for their money, that "you can only have 100 percent of anything"; but Russell Wiseman sort of apologizes, but again, not really, for claiming that Obama pre-empted "A Charlie Brown Christmas" with his Afghanistan speech because he's really NOTHING BUT A MUSLIM IN DISGUISE WHO DOESN'T WANT TO HEAR LINUS READ ABOUT THE BIRTH OF BABY JESUS!!!

(sorry - I know I'm not supposed to "shout" like that...and I didn't know you could say "sons of bitches" on a prime-time cable news/talk show)...

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...and at the end of the day, all you can do (if you don't live in Oklahoma, of course) is sit back right easy and laugh over Jim Inhofe, which is exactly what he deserves (he likes flying in planes upside down, apparently - I would say that explains a thing or two)...

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...and here's a holiday favorite (you better watch out, you better not cry, you better not violate your parole).