Yeah, I should be happy. Two things that I wanted to happen so much that I was afraid to say that I wanted them to happen—the collapse of the Republican attempt to repeal ObamaCare and the victory of presumptive senator Roy “Super Bigot” Moore1 in the Alabama Republican primary—have happened. But I’m still not happy, and here’s why:
Republicans, after all, came within two or three votes of passing “legislation” that is in fact pure junk, condemned by every major health organization in the country, a “bill” contrived not to offer a new and better approach to health insurance in this country but rather to significantly damage the existing one, to strip it of hundreds of billions of dollars in the coming years, with no concern whatsoever of how that might impact the American people, as an act of pure spite, an act of revenge on the Obama Administration for daring to suggest that no American should be denied health care.
Senate Republicans have voted to do this twice; House Republicans have only voted to do it once, but their bill not only took billions from the poor but handed those billions to the rich. None of the various bills that the Republicans have thrown into the legislative hopper were the product of traditional legislative practice. They were all written and rewritten in secrecy, so that no one would know what they contained until the final vote.
They were obstructed in this grotesque farce principally by two men, Sen. John McCain, who objected to the massive violation of legislative procedure and by Sen. Rand Paul, who objected to the utter lack of coherence to the legislation’s provisions. There were, no doubt, three or four senators pleased to hide behind this two-man display of principle. But if McCain and Paul had buckled, so would have everyone else.
This is all bad enough. In fact, it’s hard to be worse. But I’ll note that the editors of the National Review, who rather bravely ran an entire “Never Trump” issue back in the day, are excoriating, not the president, who would have signed an otherwise blank sheet of paper if it read “The ObamaCare Repeal and Replace Act of 2017, and not House Speaker Paul Ryan, who produced the first and (probably) worst draft of this continuing abomination, but rather the brave few senators who refused to vote to wreck the American health care system, while also throwing a few punches at Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for not bringing the magic and passing this shitload of crap. Yep, those are the real criminals!
It’s all enough—more than enough—to make an Episcopalian cry “Oy gevalt!” But we still haven’t reached the basement! Because Roy Moore is the guy who makes the National Review look good!
Long life and prosper, John McCain, long life and prosper. Because what comes next may not be pretty.
Afterwords
Pretty much unalloyed good news is that Donald Trump is predictably re-pissed at Mitch McConnell for failing a second time to wreck health care and also for helping talk Trump into campaigning against Moore. Congratulations, Mitch! You new colleague almost makes Trump look normal!
UPDATE
According to the Weekly Standard’s Mark Hemingway, there are no Republicans outside the Beltway who don’t hate Mitch McConnell! Oy vey, Mitch! Is this why you busted your ass lo these many years?
- Roy Moore is so bad even Ed Rogers hates him! Ed, a K Street Cowboy who has been swallowing Trump’s intellectual effluvia like a hog starved for sustenance since Jan. 20, has finally started to gag, first on Trump himself but especially on Roy. And if Ed gags, baby, look out! ↩︎
