A Rose By Any Other Name
by Big Dog on Oct 26, 2009 at 19:57 Political
In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Romeo laments over identity with regard to the love of his life, whose family name is the sworn enemy of his own. In Act II, Scene II Romeo asks:
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet
With regard to the health care takeover that the Democrats are working feverishly to accomplish, the question might be; “What’s in a name? That which we call a turd would still smell as foul.”
Nancy Pelosi is trying to repackage the turd known as the public option by giving it another name. She was in Florida with Yenta Debbie Wasserman to discuss what we know as the public option. Only now, the smelly turd is called the “competitive option” or the “consumer option.” Yes, the Democrats want to package the public option under a different name in order to sell it to America.
During the campaign a phrase was over used but it applies so well in this case that I must use it again. You can put lipstick on a pig but it is still a pig.
Pelosi and Obama are hell bent on getting a public option. Obama is playing it cool and acting like it is no big deal but he wants it and he will get it, if not now then after they pass any kind of health care bill. Once the camel’s nose is under the tent it will not be long before the entire camel is in there messing things up.
The Democrats are approaching November and they believe that the uproar of August is sufficiently behind them so they can ram things that people do not want down our collective throats. They are sadly mistaken if they think that this will not hurt them in the 2010 election. But they have to do something because Obama believes failure to get health care legislation will make his tenure a failure. This, according to Dick Morris, is why Olympia Snowe voted to get the bill out of committee. If she voted to help save his legacy then she definitely needs to go.
It looks like the Senate has joined in the public option carnival as Harry Reid announced that the bill coming out of the Senate will have a public option in it. The bill will supposedly allow states to opt out. If they do, will they still pay the same taxes as everyone else? Will states that opt out still pay for the states that do not? At what point will the federal government decide that states may no longer opt out? Why does someone have to opt out as opposed to opting in?
Harry Reid just hammered a few more nails into his political coffin. That brain damaged moron will lose the next election and we can finally be rid of him. He is helping the Republican party gain seats in the next election.
Obama, Reid, Pelosi and many other Democrats want a public option despite the objections of the public at large. They will force this on us no matter what we want because they believe that they know better what you need than you do. The Democrats have opposition in their own ranks (despite Reid’s claim to have nearly the 60 votes he needs) because some of them come from states that McCain won by huge margins and their jobs are in jeopardy. They do not want to lose. He might get Republicans to vote for it but any Republicans who vote for this will do so at their own peril.
This option, by any other name, is nothing more than a turd and while I know that the liberals believe that it is possible to pick up a turd by the clean end, that cannot happen. No matter what they call it, it is still a turd and it still smells the same.
We need to oppose this and we need to be on the phone with all the elected people from our states. They need to know that we will fire them if they vote for this.
As far as I am concerned, I want them all replaced no matter what but they still think they will hold on to their jobs. We need to let them know they will be unemployed if they push this through.
Every seat in the House is up for reelection next November. America, it is time to do some House cleaning.
Or to quote Shakespeare one more time:
“Now is the winter of our discontent” [King Richard III, Act I, Scene I]
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Tags: Obama, Pelosi, public option, Reid, rose, shakespeare, turd
There aren’t too many Dems happy with Reid anyway. I certainly wouldn’t lose sleep over it. It’s rare to sack a party leader like that of course but it won’t mean anything to lose Reid unless it also swings the majority. In 2004 when Daschle lost that was a pretty big blow to the party. This one would be a blow to his supporters but nobody else really.
I’m excited for the election season to be back. It’s been a year now since there were election polls worth looking at. Let’s get this show on the road…
I would be happy to just replace all members of the House and the 37 or so Senators up for reelection and it would be fine if Democrats replaced Democrats and likewise for Republicans. If we turn it over the majority will not matter as people will understand that America has had enough of all of them.
Reid will be gone. It will be interesting to see how Boxer, Spector and Dodd do. I also think McCain could be out.
They could get rid of them all as far as I am concerned. Lifetime politicians are not good for the country.
Your last sentence is one of the things I think you and I can agree on without argument.
I wouldn’t count out Reid yet. You can’t glean much info from these things until the primaries end and the pollsters switch from speculating on the candidates to knowing for sure.
I don’t have a problem at all with the lack of term limits in Congress. Sure, you have folks who have been in there 30, 40, or 50 years, but the vast majority do not serve that long.
For instance look at these numbers I just crunched based on the 111th Congress:
Senate Years (AVG: 13.0, Low: 1, High: 51)
* 84% served 24 years of fewer
* 74% served 18 years or fewer
* 54% served 12 years or fewer
* 35% served 6 years or fewer
House Years (AVG: 11.1, Low: 1, High: 55)
* 73% served 16 years of fewer
* 60% served 12 years or fewer
* 46% served 8 years or fewer
* 27% served 4 years or fewer
What term limits do you propose? A strong majority serve fewer than 3 terms already. Only 1 out of 4 or so makes it past a 4th term.
We have term limits, we just call them elections instead.
As a quick correction I keep thinking Congress is every 4 years instead of every 2 for some reason. That fact changes my results as far as terms go but the years listed are still correct. Only 1 out of every 4 members of Congress will serve longer than 20 years. Half of Congress serves less than 10 years. I think that alone is enough to convince me that term limits are unnecessary.
You do have to look at the fact that a lot of Reps, and even some Sen. were replaced in the last election, so that might skew your results some- but I feel that NO MORE than 18 years at the most- 29 years used to be a person’s career (as in, after 20 , they gave him a gold watch)- and they could still go back to private life.
I would feel more comfortable with 12 years.
I thought of exactly that problem after I was heading to bed last night. I’m going to get data on several more sessions of congress. I’ll see what I come up with and report back if anybody cares.
I’m absolutely interested Adam, if you find the time.
Thanks.
I think it would be interesting to look at. I also think term limits are in order. The Founders never intended this to be a full time, lifetime gig. I agree that elections are term limits but people have NIMBY syndrome and the people in Congress have made it nearly impossible for Mr. Smityh to go to Washington through the things they do to ensure the power of incumbancy.
Ted Kennedy was in there for 47 years and Robert Byrd has been there since they signed the Declaration. I think if the President is limited to two terms then Senators should be limited to two and House members to 6. That is 8 yrs for the pres, 12 for each of the chambers.
I think that would be a good mix, with the elections staggered as they are, fresh blood and ideas would be coming in all the time.
But we have to do something about the UNELECTED people in Washington- the lobbyists.
I would outlaw ALL gifts, trips, anything that isn’t info on the subject at hand.
I can agree that lobbyists can do a good service by informing Congress of the pros and cons of an issue, but inciting them to vote one way or another through the use of bribes is not the way to go.
Term limits are just part of the problem – I think we need to outlaw lobbyists and make sure that those elected vote as representatives of their constituency rather than “whatever they think best.” I would love to see a complete turnover – maybe we could get some people in there who remember that being an elected official and serving in D.C. is a PRIVILEGE and should be treated as such. It is an honor, not just a job (that sounds like a military commercial – sorry). And maybe then we can get back to a representative democracy rather than a “whoever pays me most gets my vote” lunacy form of government.
They think that by changing the name of the public option (which was a term they thought they could sneak by also)the American people won’t realize what it is. This shows us how stupid they think the voters are. They are willing to sneak this through at all costs no matter how much the voters are against us, they think that they are smarter than everyone else. Perhaps that is why they hold the voters in such contempt.
The Dems are drunk with power. Furthermore, they can’t imagine that they are signing their own loss of power by pushing the public option.
At this point, Americans aren’t stupid enough to allow a change of terminology to deceive them. At least, that’s my view.
Of course, some liberals do support the public option. My Canadian neighbor, now an American citizen, is one of those dumb asses.