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As the debate over U.S. health care reform degenerated into a battle over partisan positioning, Democrats found themselves struggling to inject some kind of legacy into their foundered effort. This meant that — sans Public Option, post-abortion compromise — Senators Harry Reid, Max Baucus, Tom Harkin, and the rest of their aristocratic and anachronistic cronies were, for their respective pre-victory self-congratulations and predictions of economic armeggedon, forced to turn away from the bill for inspiration. Reid found himself destroying baseball history. Senator Christopher Dodd tried to tack his party’s slackened reform onto FDR’s four freedoms. Their colleagues invoked the bible and George Washington.
Sigh.
We here at Unfit value nothing more than a creative cut-and-paste job. Still, such a desperately wide array of historical snipping seems to betray a certain lack of … focus. So, in advance of what will surely be meant as an epoch-defining moment, we offer President Obama’s speech writers the following wholly-borrowed concise message. After these last few weeks of total bullshit, the least our failed leadership can do is grant us all the simple honesty of uniform plagiarism.
The Gospel According to Franklin Delano Washington, or The Full Senate at the Bat
Good evening sports fans.
This is a day of national consecration. And I am certain that on this day my fellow Americans expect that on my induction into the Presidency the occasion of my signing the policy on which I have so clearly staked my Presidency, I will address them with a candor and a decision which the present situation of our people impels.
[Let me start by saying:] Do not be wise in your own eyes fear the LORD abstract concepts of socialism and shun evil a clear, comprehensive system of health care coverage. This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones. Honor the LORD Aetna with your wealth, with the first fruits of all your crops; Say to him it: ’Long life to you! Good health to you and your household! And good health to all that is yours!
The period for a new election of a citizen, to administer the executive government of the United States, being not [too] far distant, and the time actually arrived [in like 18 months], when your thoughts must be employed designating the person, who is to be clothed with that important trust, it appears to me proper, especially as it may conduce to a more distinct expression of the public voice, that I should now apprize you of the resolution I have formed, to decline being considered among the number of those out of whom a choice is to be made sign this hulking abortion of reform, and thus attempt to preserve for myself a chance at the Presidency in 2012.
However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people, and to usurp for themselves the reins of government; destroying afterwards the very engines, which have lifted them to unjust dominion.
[Look duders, like Harkin said, this shit is just a starter health care bill.]
[Besides, this was SO HARD.] I mean, I was like: Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel [of health care reform] shall be preached in the whole world, there shall also this, that this woman hath done, the idea that it’s okay to be flexible, if you need to preserve your career, be told for a memorial of her to democracy. [But] [t]hen one of the twelve Senators, called Judas Iscariot Joseph Lieberman, went unto the chief priests Aetna, And said unto them, What will ye give me, and I will deliver him untoward profits unto you? And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver.
[So we had a choice. And we decided to call] together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
The Outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Mudville nine Muddied bill that day:
The score stood four to two Fifty-nine to Forty-one, with but one inning more to play.
And then when Cooney Kennedy died at first, and Barrows Byrd [nearly] did the same,
A sickly silence fell upon the patrons of the game.
A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. The rest
Clung to that hope which springs eternal in the human breast;
They thought, if only Casey the full senate could get but a whack at that -
We’d put up even money, now, with Casey the full Senate at the bat.
But Flynn Lieberman preceded Casey the full Senate, as did also Jimmy Blake Ben Nelson,
And the former was a lulu and the latter was a cake;
So upon that stricken multitude grim melancholy sat,
For there seemed but little chance of Casey’s the full Senate’s getting to the bat.
[So we compromised. For now. Look, like Harkin said, this shit is just a starter health care bill.]
[L]et me [now] assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life, a leadership of frankness and of vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. [And for that, you might have to wait like six years. Like Harkin said, this shit is just a starter health care bill.]
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4 Comments
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Thanks.
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. I’ll go and read some more!
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