This weekend, while trying to distract myself I'll be seeing the new Woody Harrelson flick "Zombieland." Distract myself from what? Well, the fact that "Yes We Can" has been flipped upside down during the health care fight. The fact that we're still embroiled in multiple fronts of an unwinnable war against a tactic. And so on. But before the fun begins, I thought I'd borrow a tag-line from the (hopefully) US response to Shaun of the Dead. And that is, Democratic leaders...please nut up or shut up. As in, show some real leadership on health care reform...or move aside and admit failure.
More ranting after the fold.
It's just so ridiculous how badly this fight has gone. Lets start with the branding. I'm not sure who came up with "the public option", but whoever it was had better already be looking for new employment. When Republicans are in power "estate tax" becomes "death tax". Leave that to the current fools in the leadership and it would be "the post death non voluntary taxation plan" or something even worse. How about "Medicare for all"? And what was so bad about "Universal Health Care"? "The public option" sounds like a corporate business plan, not a way to sell a huge reform of our health care industry. They may be the root of all evil, but if it were Republicans fighting for this they'd brand it right. "Live Saving Care Initiative" or something.
But hey, we can get past a little bad branding with effective leadership, right? Well, right, but we're missing effective leaders. If Republicans, when in power, found themselves a few votes short of a major policy victory...they'd crack a couple heads. Warn a few folks that if they didn't get on board, The Club For Growth would primary the hell out of them and the leadership would do nothing to help them. Just like Democrats could probably seal up a few tough votes with warnings of turning **us** loose on them with no help. Of course, I guess we lost that avenue when Ned Lamont was given the shaft all in the name of the (same) old boys club.
Who am I kidding though. We can't even get our leader in the Senate to not predispose his chamber against "the public option" that his President so strongly supports. Can you imagine what Bush would have done had Lott, Frist, or McConnell worked against him like that?
But hey, at least we'll get the bill we really need thank to reconciliation. Right? Right?!?! Of course not. So far, the spineless nimrods haven't even embraced the most rational and likely to succeed method. How can they get people to wrap their minds around a win with 51 votes if we can't shut up Senators saying that less than 65 would be unacceptable?
So, this weekend when I see the first zombie lose its brain to a shotgun blast...excuse me if I can't help but breath "just like the health care debate, all blown to hell." And excuse me if I feel like we'd be much better off as a party if many of our leaders met a zombies fate. Put down due to insanity.