Thursday, August 20, 2009

Health Care Reform Anthony Weiner on Hardball.



Anthony Weiner is new to me, but he's a breath of bloody fresh air.

Watch how Mathews gets horrified with Weiner's notion that the Democrats should push through health care reform with 51 votes in the Senate.

MATTHEWS: But you never... You would be willing to blow up the Senate rules and basically push it through that.

WEINER: What do you mean, blow up the Senate rules? Look, there's a reason that there's a Democratic House, a Democratic Senate and a Democratic presidency. That middle bloc of Americans want us to get this done.

MATTHEWS: What do you think the Republican reaction would be if you ignored the rules and pushed through a bill?

WEINER: Honestly, waiting for a Republican senator to be pleased with this process is something I'm not prepared to do.

MATTHEWS: No, what would they do? No. When war begins... Look, we've been through goddamned wars in this country, they're easy to start, it's tough to end them. How do you stop a war that starts in the United States Senate right now because you jammed through a bill with less than 60 votes?

WEINER: What do you mean, jammmed, started a war?

MATTHEWS: What are the 40 Republicans going to do? What are they gonna do?

WEINER: Look, outside of this town, the American people really don't care about whether Grassley voted for it or not.

Mathews is pushing the language which Obama sometimes pushes, that bipartisanship is always best. And maybe that's sometimes true. But how can one hope to reach agreement with a movement who have sent people on to the streets claiming that Obama is a Nazi? With people who turn up at public events with semi-automatic weapons?

With Michael Steele, who says that he's unsure whether or not there are such a thing as "death panels?"

Mathews is pushing the notion that the Republicans might get angry. He's ignoring the fact that they are at this moment insanely enraged and that they have already emptied their gun chambers. Do they have something worse to compare Obama to than Hitler?

Mathews seems to believe that the Republicans can be even more repulsive than they have so far been.

The point which Weiner makes brilliantly is, what else have these buggers got to throw? After Hitler, fascism, "killing grannies" and "not being an American", I see very little to gain by worrying about upsetting these lunatics.

Push it through with 51 votes. F#ck them.

The Democrats have tried bipartisanship, their reward has been lies and lunacy. Mathews appears to think that they might get nasty if the Democrats push this. What planet is he on?

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