re: #179 FrogMarch

Owens and Cao.
Nice job, Pelosi.

A pointless argument, to be frank. The margins don’t matter - a bill either passes or it doesn’t. Bitching about passage after the fact serves no purpose, and it’s exactly this sort of whining after the fact that has both characterized the GOP response to every single issue before Congress this session and has doomed mounting an effective, rational opposition to legislation. Tactics like coalition building, establishing public consensus and putting forward viable alternative legislation have been utterly abandoned in favor of childish stunts like catcalling from the floor, promotion of fictional bullshit like “death panels” and over the top rhetoric and name-calling.

If the GOP gives a shit about health care - either stopping it or putting their own proposal on the table - they need to stop acting like children throwing a temper tantrum after things don’t go their way, and start acting like adults who are capable of planning ahead and delaying gratification.

There’s a very good chance that the current Democratic health care proposal can be stopped in the Senate - a much better chance, in fact, than it ever stood of being stopped in the House. Yet I don’t see a single GOP effort to mount an effective opposition to it there - only the usual whining about how, somehow, the process in the House was flawed in some indefinable way and the usual insane caricaturing of the Administration, comparing them to Nazis or worse.

Given the GOP’s behavior throughout this process, and particularly over the last week, turning control of the party over to loons like Bachmann, Beck and Limbaugh, attempting to shout down their opposition on the floor and refusing to even participate in important committee meetings on upcoming legislation, they richly deserved this loss. And they can look forward to many, many more like it if they don’t drop the bullshit and start behaving like grown ups.