http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2010/03/22/baby-killers/
Baby Killers!
By MATT TAIBBI
Today, after a flurry of media questions about the identity
of the shouter, GOP Texas Rep. Randy Neugebauer stepped forward as
the offending shouter—though he stipulated he actually shouted,
“It’s a baby killer,” in reference to the unamended health care
bill, and has since apologized to Stupak for any suggestion that
he personally was responsible for the killing of babies.
via “Baby killer” shouter steps forward, highlights internal
GOP dilemma – Yahoo! News.
Again apologize for the inattention to the blog. I’m on a deadline
and up against it at the moment.
But I do want to point out some interesting aspects to this health
care story.
Only in America could we have a situation in which the GOP punts
away a political opportunity by having a some Texas congressman
shout “Baby Killer!” during a debate — and then the Democrats
fumble that punt by celebrating the Republican-ness of the
historic bill they just passed.
As she inched toward the triumphant win, Nancy Pelosi issued a
fact sheet about the bill that cheerfully quoted an E.J. Dionne
editorial. The passage:
An op-ed by E.J. Dionne on Friday reveals that the current
health reform legislation pending before Congress was “built on a
series of principles that Republicans espoused for years.”
The electoral-politics aspect of what just happened with health
care is a bit strange. It seems to me that the Republicans
capitulated entirely to Tea Party sentiment, a move that sets them
up for a Sarah Palin candidacy in 2012, which in turn is a move
that sets them up for a crushing general-election defeat.
Meanwhile the Democrats spent the health care debate fleeing from
their own base, a move that… well, I don’t know what it means,
exactly, but it does make me a little ill. The whole picture is
strange: Democrats running as Republicans, Republicans running as
Turner-Diaries conspiracy theorists.
I don’t get what the Republicans have to gain by painting
themselves as hysterical survivalist Ruby-Ridge loonies (Kentucky
congressman Geoff Davis pulling out the “Don’t Tread on Me” flag
was a move more larded with mawkish over-drama than your average
drag-queen tribute to Edith Piaf). It feels to me like they played
this one wrong.
It doesn’t matter, though. Should I decide to change my politics
and become a conservative now that I’m exactly the middle-aged
bourgeois/suburban tool I used to rail against, I can always vote
Republican by voting Democratic. The new Democratic Party is an
excellent substitute for the old Nixon/Ford Republican Party. They
even passed Nixon’s vision of a health care plan. That there’s no
Democratic Party left is a shame, but I guess one choice is better
than none.
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