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Darcy Burner has written a post providing reasons House members should reject a bad healthcare bill:
I keep having the same argument, in which someone says, "The progressives won’t really kill healthcare reform, right? Even if they don’t get a public option – right?"
And I unfailingly respond, "Actually, they will. And they should."
I think Burner’s argument misses a fact so obvious it is easily overlooked. The reality is that it won’t be a progressive vote that kills the bill. It will be a strongly bipartisan vote that does so.
If the president puts up a bill that not only fails to solve our healthcare problems but actually makes them worse, that bill will not be killed by the progressive caucus. It will be killed by 178 Republican members and some smaller but significant number of democrats voting against it in a strongly bipartisan fashion.
We shouldn’t overlook this obvious fact, because this White House has constantly and consistently spoken about the blessings of bipartisanship in the construction of their bill. Not a day passes without Gibbs or Rahm Emanuel expressing the great importance of bipartisanship. Even when the basis for their "bipartisan" claim is just a single moderate GOP senator, this administration has praised bipartisanship as if that factor alone could make a bill good or bad.
So here’s a question: if bipartisanship is such an accurate gauge of sound, good policy and decision-making, what then can the White House say if their barely-bipartisan policy effort is defeated by a true bipartisan majority in the House?
You can’t have it both ways, Rahm. Your own rhetoric demands that we view bipartisanship as inherently good and absolutely necessary. If that is true, a strong and united bipartisan decision in a given House vote cannot be wrong. If large numbers of House members from both sides of the aisle vote against a bill as bad policy, how can they be mistaken in that strongly bipartisan consensus?
And if bipartisanship is always right, then who was wrong in the construction of that bill, Rahm? Who is the donkey who gets that failure pinned to his ass?
12 Comments
Great point, CO.
This seems like a good time to dust this one off again:
Rahm = Rove
What’s wrong with this math:
1) Rahm = Rove
2) Bush was to Rove as Obama is to Rahm (Bush/Rove = Obama/Rahm)
3) Therefore, Bush = Obama
Equation 3 follows inexorably from equations 1 and 2 as a pure matter of math.
Nothing wrong with that. We are in Bush’s third term that we thought we avoided by sending McSame packing. Little did we know…
There’s certainly a lot of truth to that.
Sorry Art45, none of the four men are numbers, so it is logically inconsistent to multiply and divide with these labels. Therefore the manipulation of ratios doesn’t work as a logical demonstration that Bush = Obama. On the other hand, as a joke it’s good for a laugh.
CO, great post and love the payoff line.
Rahm?… I consider Obama playing corporate Pinocchio unfortunately with Rahm as toxic, anti-conscience Jiminy Cricket.
Obama’s charisma and after glow of election … buys much more time for corporate powers to do their gang rapes of the country. Obama’s contribution to history has been made by his race. I hope he has more positives to give. Did he sell his soul to get the job already?
He got the job without selling his soul. So, what’s he selling it now for? To get as rich as Bill Clinton?
Nice turnaround CO. I enjoyed it.
But bipartisanship is a very complex idea that can be used in many ways, not always consistently, which is to say there has always been a strong element of BS in its use. In the case we’re talking about here, what looks like a bipartisan vote would be composed of a strongly partisan vote from Republicans, and a vote from progressives which is based on strongly felt policy considerations, and certainly not on a desire to defeat Obama and the Democratic Party. So such a vote wouldn’t really be a bipartisan one since all or most people voting against the bill would not be voting against it primarily because of partisan considerations.
That is absolutely true, lets, and was part of my point. I wasn’t being reverential to “bipartisanship”. That is why the term is italicized in the header. But if the WH and congress can use the term to produce a bad bill that only an insurance company could love, then the progressives can kill that bill, using the exact same term. Because we all know that bipartisanship is absolutely good, right?
please excuse the OT to CO.
CO, wrt your previous diary (comments now closed) somehow i missed this bit in the press release:
i expect the report will be available after the presentation.
Selise,
Ahha! Always a good idea to read the things one is linking to carefully, eh?
That is very good. I’ll take a look at that when possible, maybe do something on it. Thanks very much.
lol! i missed it too!