What I hope is that the Democrats take a beating at the ballot box and rethink their contempt for those mouth-breathing illiterates in the electorate.
So, I guess this is a great day for patriotism, or centrism, or capitalism, or corporatism, or fascism, or socialism, or Marxism, or fanaticism, or fatalism, or perhaps listening to the self-congratulating just jism. So congrats to viscous substances everywhere.
In any case, I’m sure that now nothing bad will ever happen to anyone again for all time.
Rep. John Campbell (R-Calif.) explained that “this is too big. We believe that this is the beginning of the end of America” […]
The first sign of the end-times Campbell forecasts is Dana Milbank turning in a decent column documenting the spitting, name-calling and drunken yelling of the last couple of days.
(I know John already linked to that McMegan column, but I think everyone wants to cut out a copy and save it in your wallet for times you’re feeling down.)
beltane
Oops. McMegan let her mask slip, and what we see is a yuppie Glenn Beck. She’s not just a teabagger sympathizer; she is a full-fledged teabagger.
EconWatcher
OK, what does this all mean for November?
beltane
Cheers! It’s a wonderful day for viscous substances. FDL told me so.
The schadenfreude is going to be overwhelming at times today. Time for a fresh cup of coffee.
Let the good times roll!
Admiral_Komack
I wonder if Jane Hamsher is in mourning today, because of HCR passage?
I wonder if she’s in blackface?
bob h
those mouth-breathing illiterates in the electorate.
The mouth-breathers who read her.
MikeJ
@EconWatcher: People like winners. They don’t go out to vote for people who hold majorities in both houses and the presidency and can’t pass something they’ve wanted for 100 years.
From the time they started debating this, the only good outcome electorally for Democrats lay in passing the bill.
FMguru
In November, the Democratic losses will be much less than they would have been if the bill had failed, and they should keep their majorities in both chambers (assuming the economy continues its slow, halting recovery and doesn’t stall out again and/or double-dip). The teabaggers are going to have a lot of wind sucked out of their sails and the Democratic base – who approved of passing this bill 87%-3% – won’t stay home in disgust (like they would have if the bill had failed).
I’d say that Obama’s re-election chances for 2012 just went from good to very good (barring unforseen game-changing events, like an economic meltdown or a foreign policy catastrophe).
FMguru
In November, the Democratic losses will be much less than they would have been if the bill had failed, and they should keep their majorities in both chambers (assuming the economy continues its slow, halting recovery and doesn’t stall out again and/or double-dip). The teabaggers are going to have a lot of wind sucked out of their sails and the Democratic base – who approved of passing this bill 87%-3% – won’t stay home in disgust (like they would have if the bill had failed).
I’d say that Obama’s re-election chances for 2012 just went from good to very good (barring unforseen game-changing events, like an economic meltdown or a foreign policy catastrophe).
FMguru
In November, the Democratic losses will be much less than they would have been if the bill had failed, and they should keep their majorities in both chambers (assuming the economy continues its slow, halting recovery and doesn’t stall out again and/or double-dip). The teabaggers are going to have a lot of wind sucked out of their sails and the Democratic base – who approved of passing this bill 87%-3% – won’t stay home in disgust (like they would have if the bill had failed).
I’d say that Obama’s re-election chances for 2012 just went from good to very good (barring unforseen game-changing events, like an economic meltdown or a foreign policy catastrophe).
kid bitzer
it’s so nice to have mcardle around, to prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that there are no thoughtful randians, just corporatist hacks and republican apparatchiks who are trying to pretend otherwise.
and really, i was about to write “there are no thoughtul libertarians,” when i remembered jim henley.
damn you, jim! ruined a perfectly good generalization!
still–the rule for randites is still as good as gold: scratch a rand, find a rove.
beltane
@bob h: The mouth breathers don’t read her. She is supposed to be one of those “sane” conservatives liberals will read from time to time, like David Brooks. However, since she revealed that her heart is with the white supremacist fringe, she has ensured that she’ll never be nearly as useful to the conservative movement as Brooks.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@beltane:
I know, I’ve been rowing my boat in their tears. :)
The howling is going to be near deafening for the next few days. Since it’s the republicans, teabaggers and firebaggers howling in pain I’ll just kick back and enjoy it.
BR
Someone made the good point that there should be a moneybomb today for dems.
Someone want to start it?
Michael
Is it tyranny of the majority or the arrogant passage of something that is wildly unpopular? I wish she and her nutbag friends could make up their fucking minds.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
How ’bout a nice big FUCK YOU to Hamsher and the Dems who voted/worked against this?
Just goes to show you that Dems actually do need the kind of majority in the House in order to pass meaningful legislation since we’re big tent and all and let waaay too many DINOs enjoy calling themselves Democrats.
beltane
This is not the end of America. This is not the beginning of the end of America. This is but the end of the beginning of America.
Thanks to the wingnuts, I haz a happy today. And I went to bed last night thinking that my kids will likely never know what it is to go without health insurance like their dad had to for so many years. F*$k the Republicans.
fucen tarmal
i thought the whole idea was to make the mouth-breathing illiterates, fewer and further between in the electorate, not to perpetuate their existence for political gain.
valdivia
Happy happy day!
I went to the WH website and the Speakers and left comments thanking them both for their leadership and getting this passed. Just felt like saying Yes We Did and thank you to them.
McMegan is such a clueless idiot. Why does she get a blog at all?
Tattoosydney
Um. Megan… I don’t think that “recourse” means what you think it does…
See, to “have recourse to” means turning or applying to a person or thing for aid or security, which would mean that in that sentence you were complaining how unfair it was to be in a world where you couldn’t appeal to the majority to back you up or help you in every little thing in your sad, pampered little life.
Oh… sorry, carry on.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
It is nice of McCurdle to state what she thinks of people who voted for Democrats. I think “mouth-breathing illiterates” is a pretty vivid description but how that is supposed to help her cause is beyond me. I think she just likes to toss out the insults while casting aspersions as to who really means what she says.
Whatever turns her crank. She does have a crank, right?
Guster
@Tattoosydney: Don’t be so pedantic, you know what she means. As of today, we live in a dystopic nightmare in which a simple majority can ensure that my kid–my kid, not theirs!–is covered by health insurance despite his asthma. Tyrants.
mai naem
Watching Morning Ho. Scarbo keeps on going about the good ole days of his House career when he had to walk 5 hours in 10ft deep snow and also too, wahhhhh wahhhhhh Obama the BigScaryBlackMuslim man should have done in September already. Wahhh, wahhhh, this WH bumbled through it. Scarbo says nothing about the Party of No.
I have no idea why I watch this show.
Jrod
@bob h: Some of my best friends are mouth breathing illiterates. They’re all smarter than McMegan. Unlike her, they actually had to learn how to get by in the world. They didn’t get to skate through college on their parents dime before making a career out of being cute and young (well into her thirties no fucking less) and able to spew out thousands of words of Randroid neoliberal horseshit every day.
They went to work. Not only that, but their ability to live decently depended on them not fucking up and ruining the joint, in contrast to McArdle’s long string of failures she’s privileged to consider “life experience.”
Fuck her and fuck the Atlantic for enabling her.
IndieTarheel
Was watching Agent Orange speaking prior to the vote; someone should tell him that every single thing that happens cannot be the end of human existence.
__
As for the bill, glad it passed. Maybe if people see that the earth won’t actually open up and swallow them whole just because a bill passed, more of them will see the GOP for what it really is –shameless shills for the haves.
kay
@valdivia:
They’re freaking out because they know it’s huge. Democrats will have enrolled 23 million people in a public health care plan by 2014, if we combine S-CHIP, S-CHIP expansion and last night’s Medicaid expansion.
It took 9 years, but what the hell.
Tattoosydney
@Guster:
After my five minutes of editing time had run out, I read that bit of her column again and realised that she may in fact have meant what I was mocking her for.
Then I read it again, and thought she meant recourse “against” the tyranny of the majority.
So then I read it a third time and I realised that Megan is just a very bad writer, a whiny dickhead and an arsehole.
MikeJ
@mai naem:
I searched and searched for a video clip of Veronica Sawyer’s response to her dad (in the movie “Heathers”) when he says, “Will someone tell me why I smoke these damn things? “
dmsilev
So, are we anywhere near Peak Wingnut yet?
-dms
(answer: very very unlikely.)
RedKitten
@MikeJ: Ah yes…she replies, “‘Cause you’re an idiot.”
Just passed along my congrats to Mr. President and Madam Speaker via whitehouse.gov. I figure they’re probably getting lots of spittle and bile directed at them, so why not add some candy and flowers to the mix?
IM
Do you remember how a few days ago McArdle attacked liberals like Chait* for being delusional optimistic about the passage of the bill in the house. Because, so Megan reasoned, any good thinking libertarian and conservative thought the bill couldn’t pass and blue dogs were running to the hills. So one side had to be delusional about passage of the bill, she wrote.
Now we know.
* (I know, I Know. But he was attacked as a delusional liberal by McArdle for saying the bill had a 60% chance of passing. And TNR in general and Chait in particular weren’t that bad on health care, if you ignored the mumblings of the racist in the background.)
Bill E Pilgrim
Commenting on the drama aspect alone, what the Republicans have done, by going so overboard and hysterically calling this the most fundamental change in everything since humanity’s existence to date and all the rest of it, has made the passage of it be seen as all the more a massive and historic accomplishment for Obama.
Not that it wasn’t, in some ways, but they’ve ensured that it be really seen as epoch-making and monumental. And very few, other than themselves and their hardcore teabag party supporters, will be listening much when they say “Wait, we meant in a bad way!”
TR
Oh, McMegan. Your tears sustain me.
I hope this is the last straw that convinces you to go finally find your libertarian paradise where the big bad gubmint can’t hurt you. You insist that it’s called “Magical Princess Ponyland,” but the rest of us know it as “Somalia.” Go and enjoy, pumpkin.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@mai naem: “I have no idea why I watch this show.”
Because you are deeply into self-abuse? Because you are looking for a cheap lobotomy? Other than those possibilities?
You got me. ;)
Some Guy
Many have said this (most notably Frum of all people), so it isn’t original, but I want to emphasize it: the sky is falling freak-out strategy leaves no following act for Republicans. At this point, you have thuglican pundits betting on America waking up to tyranny – any moment now, just wait, and America will see how oppressed they are by Obama. Keep waiting, waiting, ok now! No, ok now!
Republicans had no credibility after Bush and they threw away whatever position they had as underdog by letting Glenn Beck draw up their anti-HCR PR. They have nowhere to go. All they can do now is shout Obama is tyrannical and make noises about starting a revolt. If they try to suddenly work some deals, all they will be asked is why all the sudden they are willing to work with socialistfascisttotalitrians.
Obama is very right: good (if imperfect) policy is good politics.
MikeJ
@RedKitten: But with love! I would hate for mai naem to think it was meant with malice instead of as lighthearted joshing.
And RK, was it you talking about geocaching the other day? Went hiking this week with one cache in mind at the top of the mountain. Never found it, but on the way up the trail, I saw a burned out stump six feet tall and said to myself, “that’s a perfect place for a cache.” And yes, it was. Weirdly, it doesn’t appear to be listed on groundspeak’s crappy site, even though it had all the standard logos taped on the log book.
Guster
@Tattoosydney: Which proves that third time’s a charm!
Ann B. Nonymous
Molly McButter is sullen. Look at her winsome 37-year-old gamine pout. But soon, her marriage to Peter Suderman will make everything all better!
And she will naturally rise above the ignorant masses in a glow of happiness and badly cooked vegetables, and be well-paid until the implosion of the publishing industry (and the horrible horrible affair of which we must never speak) sends her to live in rural Connecticut with her child, Dagny, where she will try to reinvent herself as a food blogger, relying on Obamacare for attacks of the croup, the mumps, and whatever it is that causes those bruises after her postprandial gin and tonic. Tonics.
Morbo
Longer McArdle: “What I hope is that the Democrats take a beating at the ballot box and rethink their contempt for those mouth-breathing illiterates in the electorate[, because I certainly never will.]”
Some Guy
From NYT (Sanger):
Rhoda
So, Mark Halpern was sucking at the Democratic teat this morning on Morning Joe and Joe was freaked the fuck out, lol. So was I, actually. But that just shows the CW around DC is that the Democrats have the wind at their backs and I think it’s starting to sink in for Joe.
Meanwhile, Lawrence O’Donnell is on telling everyone how a tax increase on those making 200,000 or families making 250,000 a year is a huge issue for middle America and these taxes are going to be offensive when everyone finds out about them.
Yeah, the country that supports the House’s version of a millionaire’s tax to pay for health care isn’t going to be pissed the rich people are paying a bit more. This guy is so green over the passage of health care reform, that he had nothing to do with, it’s astounding.
kay
@Some Guy:
It’s a stupid argument. Bill Clinton was a right-leaning centrist, and he’s in the “highly polarizing” group?
It’s not about ideology. If it were, Republicans would have embraced Clinton, who sold GOP policy, because they couldn’t sell it themselves. Instead, they tried to drive Clinton from office.
That a liberal is arguing this is embarrassing.
jwb
@dmsilev: “So, are we anywhere near Peak Wingnut yet?” Not even close.
Mike Kay
Hanoi Jane Hamsher = Clown
beltane
@Rhoda: These pundits need to be paid a lot less money. For anyone to say a family making $250,000 is the norm is to admit to being totally out of touch. The median household income in my town is something like $33,000. I bet there is not one single family here bringing in a quarter million a year.
beltane
@Mike Kay: Will Grover Norquist dump her now? Their alliance failed in its goal of dividing Democrats.
El Cid
McAddled is among the huge list of people who I am insulted to have to know what they think about subjects. They are hired, mindless hacks who are getting paid to spout lazy nonsense solely because of its ideological desirability.
And these worthless sorts dare talk about who’s ‘productive’ and who are ‘parasites’. A**holes.
kay
@Rhoda:
O’Donnell’s Big Theory, that he repeated endlessly, was that the longer they debated health care, the less popular it would get, because that’s what happened to Clinton.
I think the poll numbers improving has rattled him to his very core.
He almost single-handedly pushed the idea that this was unpopular, and handed Republicans the stupid argument you heard over and over last night, where ‘the American People are opposed to this”.
He’s married to the idea that it’s unpopular. I don’t imagine he’ll back off that claim if it turns out not to be true.
SiubhanDuinne
@Some Guy:
Reminds me od the great Beyond the Fringe sketch “The End of the World” where the four guys gather high atop a mountain waiting for the apocalyptic conflagration. When it doesn’t happen (“it *was* GMT, wasn’t it?”) the sketch ends:
“Never mind, lads. Same time tomorrow. We must get a winner one day.”
mr. whipple
No. You could have accepted Obama’s hand, worked with Dems and got this watered down even more. But you chose to go all in on being aholes, and you lost.
So sad.
beltane
@El Cid: Yeah, why must we be subjected to the musings of a spoiled, stuck-up rich girl who has never worked at a real job a single day of her life. While we’re on the subject of parasites, McArdle fits the bill rather nicely.
beatty
I have to defend mouth breathers of America. Or some of us mouth breathers. People who breathe through their mouths are asthmatics. Your lungs fill up, your airways narrow, what do you do? You go for the largest portal for O2 as you can.
I’m not going to march down any boulevard waving a banner, decrying the use of mouth breathers to mean….barbarian, hoodlum, caveman. I’m not going to sign any petitions about this. But if blogs are all about honing in on stuff that does not get talked about in newspapers and traditional talking heads media, surely I can say a little something about the commonly used phrase.
AB
Seriously, someone needs to get the moneybomb division of the progressosphere into overdrive. If Democrats know that results = campaign backing, this won’t be an isolated success.
mr. whipple
I’ll admit to having some doubts about Obama. But during the HCR summit, some doofus Gooper was going on about how medical savings accounts were the answer and Obama said, ‘that might be fine for you because you make $175,000k a year. You are among the top income bracket. But what about a family that makes 40k a year?’
I knew right then: dood gets it.
Bill E Pilgrim
@kay:
That’s Peter Beinart, the past editor of The New Republic. He’s “liberal” only in that special “See, even the liberal New Republic agrees!” way that people use so often to validate conservative talking points.
J.
The Republicans said the same things (worse) about Social Security and Medicare, and I’m pretty sure a) the world did not end; b) the United States did not become a United Socialist Republic; and today you have plenty of Republicans screaming equally loudly about protecting Social Security and Medicare.
Dannie22
I never watch Morning Ho in the morning, but the concern trolling was too much to resist. I expect any day now for Lawrence Odonnell to leave the democratic party in disgust and go work for the Heritage foundation to help repeal this healthcare bill.
Poor Lawrence is absolutely distraught that people who make over $250,000 are gonna have their taxes raised. People like him I guess. Ahhhhh. So sorry Lawrence! I guess he’ll just have to join the teabaggers in their quest for freedom and justice against tyranny.
Also, Lawrence, if you hate corporate insurance so much, how about getting rid of yours?
Rhoda
@kay: He doesn’t want to acknowledge that the Republicans tore down Hillary and used her to poison the bill for the public. In this case, however, they haven’t managed to tear Obama down. He’s more popular than the Republicans and he’s going to go out there now and campaign on this bill.
And he’s going to be able to say I said I’d do this, I did this, and the Republicans stood in the way.
Come election time: Democrats can point to health care reform, student aid reform, and financial reform. Republicans have nada.
kay
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Thank you. I didn’t know who he was.
I’m completely ignorant of that whole category of liberals, but I’ve become aware that they exist. I still need help determining who’s who.
I always think Bill Clinton conclusively disproves the theory that Republicans can be brought on board after they lose an election. He did a much better job putting an appealing face on their horrid policy than they ever have.
JPS
Everyone here needs to start donating money to the Reps in conservative districts who supported this Bill! Reps like Tom Perriello, the only member from the Virginia Democratic delegation who has a pair. How bout balloon juice sets up an act blue page?
Napoleon
@kay:
The Washington Monthly around 6 months ago in a column by its founder (Charlie Peters?) mentioned in passing that O’Donnell while he was a Senate staffer in the Clinton years was instrumental in killing the Clinton plan without offering any details.
Ty Lookwell
Dannie22 – I think you misunderstood Lawrence O’donnell’s points and sympathies.
This is the first morning I’ve watched Morning Joe in a long time and… ugh. Horrible – there is no decent early morning political show on TV (C-Span, periodically). It really gets my hate on for Joe Scarborough (“Lori Klausutis”…”Lori Klausutis”…). I wonder what prescription strength antidepressants Mika takes.
kay
@Rhoda:
The older I get, the more I think it’s a process of inches. I think Hillary took us somewhere, with her effort, I think S-CHIP was huge in terms of convincing people that a public health care plan is a great thing to have (parents here love, love, love it: they talk about it like old people talk about Medicare) and I think Obama took it still further.
I was fairly certain that Democrats would be the harshest critics, and leading the charge to denigrate what we’ve achieved here. I object to it only because I don’t think it works, as a tactic. If you seek broader health care reform, I don’t think discrediting the phrase “health care reform” is helpful. I watched that happen with stimulus, and I was tearing my hair out.
gbear
@beltane:
Will Grover Norquist dump her now? Their alliance failed in its goal of
dividing Democratsenriching Grover Nordquist.JPS
Here I Perriello’s actblue:
http://www.actblue.com/entity/fundraisers/18431
Donate to him and all the other courageous Congress folks in tough districts.
RedKitten
@MikeJ:
Had anybody else signed the log? If not, maybe it was new and hadn’t yet been listed, in which case, congrats on the FTF!
And yeah…that’s how we find most of ours. At some point you have to put down the GPS and say, “If I wanted to hide a film canister right around here…where would I hide it?”
Dannie22
@ Ty
what did I misunderstand?
soonergrunt
@Some Guy:
It does leave one following act.
It leaves violence. Political terrorism. The left had it in the sixties and seventies with the weathermen and the SDS. It’s the right’s turn, I guess, only there will be more of them since their ideology so readily turns to violence.
ericblair
@Some Guy: Many have said this (most notably Frum of all people), so it isn’t original, but I want to emphasize it: the sky is falling freak-out strategy leaves no following act for Republicans. At this point, you have thuglican pundits betting on America waking up to tyranny – any moment now, just wait, and America will see how oppressed they are by Obama.
The other part of this is that the Republicans went balls-to-the-wall to stop this and failed. Not one Republican vote, and the party organs went into bullshit overdrive to smear this and drive its popularity into the dirt. Now the Democrats have learned something: you don’t need a single. fucking. Republican to pass something and there’s no reason to pay attention to them at all.
And as others have said, now the media basically has to buckle down and tell people what’s actually in the bill, as opposed to parroting Republican garbage about gay death panels and mandatory white people abortions. This may put a bit of a dent into Republican credibility for the segment of the population that has an attention span longer than a popcorn fart.
Now I realize that most Democrats will still live in fear of the Republicans for no reason, and that a good part of the population does have a political memory the length of a popcorn fart, but progress is always incremental.
Tom65
Looks like Hamsher is quietly hoping for state nullification:
http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/03/21/will-mandate-mania-be-the-gay-marriage-of-2010/
mr. whipple
We were standing in line getting tickets to see Obama last week, and behind us there was a couple in their 80’s and we started to chat. And the guy said, ‘everything is a battle in this country, a war. Every step forward. SS, Medicare, Unemployment benefits. It’s always a war.’
rootless-e
So should the Republican leadership be imprisoned in St. Helens or Elba?
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
In other humorous nooz…
Over at PUMAville (aka Swampdaughter’s Cornfluence,
myiq2xu’sGoatBoy’s playpen) Swampdaughter mentions a poll the head firebagger, Calamity Hanoi Jane, posted that asks who gets the most blame for HRC passing (nice way to put it, eh?). Swampy sez that people like Calamity Hanoi Jane are to blame for not sticking up for Hillary!, saying that “… women such as Jane Hamsher herself who did not forcefully advocate for fairness in the primaries and who rejected a sure thing womens’ advocate in Clinton for a cipher in a mens suit.”This is 2010 now, right? Someone ought to… aww hell forget it, it ain’t worth it.
Ed in NJ
@Bill E Pilgrim:
blockquote fail.
Excellent point. Beinart writes for the Daily Beast, which is like a clearinghouse for contrarian Liberals and Conservatives like Meghan McCain, Christopher Buckley, and Beinart. I think this site was set up to allow these types to audition for the cable news shows.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
We’re all gonna die, meantime, we’ll have health care.
rootless-e
@Tom65: the comments, including Jane’s are full on GOP.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
Do you always have to look at the bright side of everything? ;)
Rhoda
@Kay: The Clintons don’t get the credit they deserve for S-Chip. That is huge and coupled with the way the entire party rallied around health care in the primary fight really paved the way for passage today.
But I really think that part of what poisoned the well on health care was how personal the Republicans made it and associated it with the Clinton’s; they demonized them and the policies they supported. It’s like a reverse Kennedy effect, lol.
Time has healed a lot of wounds; but the way they tried to tear that couple down is a part of the visceral fear I think a lot of conservadems have (in addition to their corporate whorish tendencies). JMHO
Brian J
Why is Megan McArdle such a tool?
kth
@Some Guy: It’s true, Obama did fail at bridging the ideological divide. But that only proves it was never possible, because it wasn’t for lack of trying.
Rhoda
@Tom65: Yeah. That’s not going to happen. The clearest example is Rick Perry in Texas and Mark Sanford in South Carolina taking the stimulus. This is an expansion of health care for people that need it and denying that care or denying the insurance regulations is a good way to get gone from political office.
State governors need results, I think some AGs will take it to court wanting to get good with the Republican teabagging base. But, it’s not going to fly. The Democrats passed this cleanly and they took the deem and pass issue off the table.
There are no holes to attack.
Ogami Itto
Why does Megan McArdle hate asthmatics? It would be irresponsible not to ask the question, blah, blah, blah.
Oh, and a warm and friendly Fuck You! to every Republican who voted against HCR. Good luck with that “Obamacare” repeal message during the mid-term elections you losers.
grandpajohn
I wonder if the “deem and pass” idea was actually a clever trap set by the leadership to get the repugs to go full wingnut on an irrelevent topic to further exposure to the public of just how insane they have become and changing the debate from the bill itsself
As for tyranny of the majority, wonder if Megan penned any vociferous dissent pieces when the repugs kept a 15 min vote open for 3 hours to pass medicare part 4?
Gregory
What I hope is that McMegan would show some intellectual honesty to make me rethink my contempt for her. Fat chance.
slightly_peeved
Only between right and left politicians, as if that matters. We’ll see how well he does between right and left voters. I think that barring the crazy 27%, he might do pretty well there, but we’ll see.
As one of the greatest generals of WWI, Sir John Monash, said: “Feed your troops on victory.” Winning begets winning. And the Republicans just showed that they suck at obstruction, as well as everything else.
DanF
Just for the record, the FDL quote above was from Attaturk – who I would definitely not call a firebagger. He is a snark-master and a gentleman.
Bullsmith
So if you massively win an election and do what you campaigned on, you’re ignoring and insulting the electorate. McMegan really is a shockingly stupid, selfish, shallow creature.
ksmiami
Just donated to Periello and I wanted to say that as a really fortunate Democrat, I am proud of this bill and happy to pay more taxes if that means a fairer and healthier society for more people. It is not going to be perfect, but Americans are going to do much better. Onward…to improving infrastructure I hope
Little Dreamer
@FMguru:
You forgot a new civil war which he can’t stop because the opposition is warring against HIS (black) presence in the White House.
Little Dreamer
@beltane:
I realized this morning just how completely unreasonable and even insanely demented much of our electorate truly is – Freepers are in full “it’s the end of the world” mode.
They are going so far as to consider possibly burning or even inflating the number of residents on census forms to try to even up their representation in congress as a form of civil disobedience (by lying, of course – dishonest assholes!). Someone even mentioned including their dogs:
Seriously, I think these people have completely lost touch with reality and we will never have a sane opposition party ever again.
CalD
__
But she’s not bitter.
Little Dreamer
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal):
I’ve never ceased to be amazed at the audacity of the opinion that since I’m female and a female ran for president that I was obligated to support her – ummm, yeah, that sure sounds like a free choice to decide my vote, huh?
kay
@Rhoda:
I was on board with the whole “the Clinton’s made Republicans hate them” idea for a while, but I think it’s been disproved.
Republicans hate Obama, too.
Let’s face it, they’re stone-cold partisans. If the individual has a “D” after their name, they’re in the Enemy Camp. The only liberals they love are the liberals who bash Democrats.
Little Dreamer
@ericblair:
I just had to see that repeated. ;)
Little Dreamer
@kay:
I wonder who will be filling in for Olbermann when he takes time off after this?
mistersnrub
Another sign of end times: Bill O’Reilly has officially become the voice of reason on Fox News. He had a major sad listening to Palin butcher the English language last night. You could just tell that he thinks the engine’s running but there is no one behind the wheel with her. He even tried to get her to cede that the bill did some positive things (!). Does anyone else think a rift is occurring btw the psycho-Beckian wing and the old school-O’Reilly wing?
Paris
Are we now in a world where there is absolutely no recourse to the tyranny of the majority?
McStupid forgot that we get to vote every two years. That’s how the we put a majority in there to do whatever pisses McStupid off. It was a total conspiracy against McStupids. We won! We won! We won!
asiangrrlMN
@valdivia: Thanks for the tip. I did the same at both the WH and Madame Speaker’s websites. I’m holding off on Harry Reid for now, but he’ll get his, too.
Echoing Little Dreamer, I’mma blockquote this:
Let this be the takeaway lesson from the whole healthcare debate debacle.
Steeplejack
Canceled because of moderation misstep.
Steeplejack
__
One thing that has stuck with me through this whole process is the stupefying level of
cognitive dissonancewillful fatalism among opponents of health-care reform. “This is too big.” What does that even mean? That we should just give up and wait for the end times? Not even take a shot at a solution?I keep remembering one thing that surprised me the most as I learned about the issues over the last year: i.e., that Taiwan created a national health insurance plan out of whole cloth in the mid-’90s, mostly based on U.S. Medicare, and it works pretty well. It’s not perfect, as the Wikipedia article discusses, but it sounds much better than what we have had here. And Taiwan is not some bloated European sociaIist welfare state. Aren’t they scrappy, go-go capitalists like we’re supposed to admire? And their economy is much smaller than ours, but it hasn’t been destroyed by this.
So we have a worse health-care system than Taiwan. Doesn’t that register with this people? As maybe something that we might want to take a look at? Apparently not.
The icing on the cake is that one of the architects of the Taiwanese plan is right here in the States, teaching at Harvard, I think. (I can’t remember his name.)
Here’s hoping the historic vote yesterday is but the first of many steps on the road to true reform.
Joel
@bob h: To be honest, McCardle’s post is grounds for termination.
asiangrrlMN
@Steeplejack: Wait a minute, wait a minute, why you picking on Taiwan? Oh, you’re not. Nebber mind. Yeah, a Taiwanese American friend and I were discussing this very point last night. But, you know, facts. Feh.
As for MM3, as I said yesterday, she is a vicious, vapid, amoral repulsive, pseudo-intellectual spoiled bitch. And, I’m being generous to her here.
Steeplejack
@asiangrrlMN:
I’m not picking on Taiwan. But I imagine that in the wingnut mind Taiwan is some primitive, alien–i.e., “not like us”–place that couldn’t possibly have anything better than we do. Whereas they do get it about Europe, although with caveats: “Well, yeah, they do have good health care, but they pay 105 percent in taxes! And they’re sociaIist.”
Nylund
Before you ever read any column, ask yourself this:
“Would support of this idea mean that some of McMegan’s money would go towards helping the less fortunate instead of purchasing an iPhone/kitchen gadget? If the answer is yes, then 100% of the time, Megan will be opposed to the idea.
She used to hide this basic premise behind a mask of very shoddy academic-esque analysis. It was enough of a cover for those that shared her sociopathic tendencies, but the shoddiness caused nothing but scorn and laughter from serious thinkers. This apparently slowly drover her mad and over the last day or two we’ve finally seen behind the mask, and unsurprisingly, what we’ve found is the vile, hateful, mean, and unbashed selfishness of a true clinically diagnosable sociopath that actually lacks the mental capacity to feel empathy for other individuals.
bobbo
McMegan:
What is she, in the third fucking grade?
liberty60
@beltane:
But that’s the reason why the Village is so incessantly stupid- they live in a world where “reg’lar folks” all have Master’s degrees from Columbia, where all “normal people” live in Georgetown townhouses worth 1.2M, where “middle class” is $250K and above. And they all eat at Applebees.
And not one of these toffs ever panicks at the approaching first of the month when rent is due, and when they are driving along and hear a funny noise from the engine, not one of them breaks into a cold sweat and prays O Jesus let it not be the transmission.
So the biggest problem that irks McArdle is the prospect that whatever unshielded income she makes over 250K will be subject to 3% more in taxation.
And that really, really makes her want to buy a pitchfork from Smith & Hawken and march down to the White House with her Restoration Hardware tiki torch and give those tyrannical Stahlinists a what-for.
craptractor
Oh, semen jokes. Very classy on FDL’s part. It it just me or does “self-congratulating just jism” not make the slightest bit of sense? Whoops, looks like I’m a little late to the party… damn you RSS reader.