Via the Crack Den, this:
Reid was talking about the historic significance of the health care
debate, and placing it in the larger context. Here’s what he said:“Instead of joining us on the right side of history, all
Senate Republicans can come up with is: ‘Slow down, stop everything and
start over.’ If you think you’ve heard these same excuses before,
you’re right.“When this country belatedly recognized the wrongs of slavery,
some dug in their heels and said, ‘slow down.’ When women spoke up for
the right to speak up — when they demanded the vote — some insisted
that they simply stop. When this body was on the verge of guaranteeing
equal civil rights to all citizens, regardless of the color of their
skin, some senators resorted to the same filibuster threats that we
hear today.“And more recently, when Chairman Chris Dodd of Connecticut – one of
the people who will go down in history as a chief champion of the bill
before us today – said that Americans should be able to start and take
care of their families without fear of losing their jobs, he heard the
sane old excuses. Through seven years of fighting and more than one
presidential veto, it was: ‘Slow down, stop everything and start over.’“History is repeating itself before our eyes. There are now those
who don’t think this is the right time to reform health care. But in
reality, for many who feel that way, there will never be a good time to
reform health care.”Republicans may not like being on the wrong side of history —
though, at this point, you’d think they’d be used to it — but that
doesn’t make the historical context “inflammatory and irresponsible.”
Merits a Happy Giant Space Sombrero Harry Photo:
You know, even if it WAS inflammatory and irresponsible, even if he wasn’t saying everything that’s been said on the Interwebs for like nine years now, seriously, so what? Better inflammatory and irresponsible in the service of getting fewer people in America dead, as is the current goal here, than nice and measured and sober and reasonable in the service of knuckling under to people whose only concern is that they get to keep shaming poor people out of seeing doctors.
I would never in a million years tell you it doesn’t matter what you call something, but even I realize that words are just that, and eventually the thing itself matters more than how it’s described. Plus it’s pretty fucking rich listening to meatmuppets like Coburn and SAXBY EFFING CHAMBLISS wank about decorum in the Senate. I suppose, according to that miserable weedwhacker Chambliss, Harry should just have waited to talk until he passed through the Senate doorway, and then he could have done something like this:
A.