Monday, October 19, 2009

HERE COMES A RERUN OF AUGUST

I'm not saying it's going to work; I'm just saying that when you read this, it means the righties are going to try to do precisely what they did the last time they said the health-care reform process had to be slowed down -- just before the August recess:

GOP Launches Strategy to Trip Up Health Bill

Senate Republicans, acknowledging they lack the votes to block a health care reform bill outright, have implemented a comprehensive political strategy to delay, define and derail.

... Unable to mount a filibuster on their own and calculating that Democrats are on track to send a health care bill to Obama by year's end, Senate Republicans figure the only way to stop or reshape the measure is to give the public enough time to figure out what's in it and what they don't like about it.

Doing that is going to take some time, and the process of amending bills during a floor debate -- which can include demanding a 60-vote threshold for all amendments -- could provide the minority ample opportunity to slow things down....

McConnell said Republicans are going to "insist" on several weeks of debate....

The Republicans also plan to use the time between now and a final floor vote to deliver a narrowly focused message via a series of floor speeches, press conferences and media appearances....


Oh, it's going to be more than that. Big Medicine is going to give us the biggest of its big lies -- whatever it's holding in reserve, which could well be more scurrilous than what we've seen already. There'll be more agitation, probably quite noisy and menacing, from the Fox-led zombies in the right-wing base. You don't think the 'pubs are going to cross their fingers and hope floor speeches and Meet the Press appearances are going to save their bacon, do you?

I'll say it again: it really may not work. But I'm also saying that if you thought they gave it their best shot in the summer and they've got nothing left, you may be in for a surprise.

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