I happened to visit RedState today (I was bored, OK?) to find out how their site took the House vote last Saturday. What surprised me was almost no evidence on the front page that a house vote even took place that day. While before the vote, the Staters were poo-pooing any chances of Democrats passing the bill, they went nearly silent after it was clear they had lost.
Deep into the comments of the post, "Today's House vote by the numbers" one front page editor makes a comment that I would like to share with you. I find these sorts of comments quite interesting because they sometimes reveal a cold hard honesty from jerks who often can't stop themselves from lying. The editor's name is "bs" and although he's less visible than say, Eric Erickson, he does post to the front page from time to time.
After the jump: !!-WHOOSH-!!
Emphasis added:
bs
This is going to pass
I would have fronted it as a diary a couple of days ago, but it’s counterproductive.
I have been saying this for a couple of months now. The Democrats believe the party line of their leadership - that the “tea partiers” are nothing more than a fringe group of nutjobs who do not represent the opinions of the general population. This is why you don’t see them shaking in their boots over the ramifications of their vote. Once the pols are in their cozy little offices in DC, they forget what goes on at home. They are held sway by their leadership, not by their constituents.
The tea parties have been nice expressions of our feelings, but they were largely ineffective because the politicians don’t believe them. To the DC Dems, NY-23 was a reinforcement of that opinion…the objections to the liberal policies of the Obama admin are the ravings of a few extremists.
Don’t count on the Senate being the place where this stops, either. Reid will muster 60 votes by pulling a Stupak. And then it goes to conference, where the GOP will have NO say in what happens. So the Dems are free to formulate a compromise bill that they can push through both sides. And thus healthcare socialization is going to pass and we won’t be able to do a damned thing about it.
It boils down to this: The only tea party that matters is the one that takes place on election day. That is the only thing these people are going to understand.
Elections have consequences. We are paying the consequences for 2008.
The interesting thing about this comment is that front-pager "bs" fully acknowledges that all the chest-beating over various anti-healthcare tactics have been largely useless, and it is only a matter of time until we have this bill passed. Those of us who read Daily Kos likely know this already, but many of those who get their political news from old media probably don't. It's quite refreshing to hear some clear thinking from this poster, and I'd bet many on the left would do well to listen to this RedStater this one time.
During the August and September agonizing over the public option from some here at Daily Kos, I got kind of annoyed with reading diary after diary either front page or off which declared it was dead one day and alive the next, while NOTHING had changed politically about adding it to the bill. It seemed as if either A) people could not help themselves from hyperventilating whenever old media declared it dead...again, or B) people were intentionally trying to harp on about it solely to declare our president a complete sell-out. Barack Obama may not have been a fierce advocate for the public option, but it was clear to see that his strategy during the debate was to stay out of it, and hopefully the senate would include it.
Personally, I think elections have some real drama in them where one 30-second comment from a newscaster or politico can completely change the dynamics of a race. But legislating is different - regardless of how horrible congress can be, the institution still consists of a small organized group of people horse-trading to address problems with various parts of our society (at least when Democrats are in charge). This "bs" guy knows the same thing Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid all know: a very good healthcare bill will very likely pass and there is very little anyone can do to stop its passage.
So for the next few months while we wait for the senate to act I would really appreciate it if every two seconds we didn't FREEEEAAAAK THE F^%$ OUT!!! because of what sweet little Always-Wrong-Conservadem™ had to say today? There have been too many weeks where I log on to DK to see all sorts of hair being pulled out over the most ridiculous slow-news-day BS from Politico, WaPo, CNN, or AP that really should have been discredited by now because they come from either Politico, WaPo, CNN, or the AP.
Thanks.