Leader at the Eleventh Hour

The News: "President Obama has taken full control of the health care negotiations.... spen[ding] more than six hours with Democratic leaders on Wednesday..." (NYT) "It was always our sense that once the bills were passed that he would have to play a much more direct role in helping work out the details,” his senior adviser, David Axlerod said in an interview, “This has been a prodigious task from start to finish; we knew it would be.”

The Note: This is truly choice. After single payer was ruled out in committee, after the public option died on the Senate floor, after Big Pharma got a 12 year monopoly on all drugs, after Big Insure got a guaranteed income flow with no cap on premiums and after the "efficiency" axe is applied to Medicare, Our President takes "full control" of the legislative process. Will he tap dance too?

Of course there is nothing of substance to take control of at this stage. The bill is a debacle... if, that is, one wanted universal health care for all Americans. That is the one thing no version of the bill does or will provide. So called "health care reform" turns out to be yet another wretched and revolting example of Obama's Neo-Trickledown © -- massive shovelling of monies in the direction of Big Corp. Only this time our pockets get to be plundered directly. A mafia shakedown would be as good.

Ever prioritizing her own political butt, Sen. Feinstein made known that opposition to the bill is running 4 to 1 in her bailiwick (California) and that she is withholding her vote until she see's what's up. No doubt the rest of the Congressional gaggle of Butts-Are-Us, have turned their noses to the wind as well.

Of course, had these congressoids actually put any moxy into serving the public's interest they might be riding a wave of support for efforts well done. But that is not what corporate whores exist for. I hope Feinstein and her co-ilks vote against the bill and then get voted out of office for having made the fiasco possible.

As for our Eleventh Hour Leader? It is truly amazing how such a bright boy turned out to be such a pathetic excuse for a politician. Then again, once one realizes what his real agenda was and for whom, he has turned out to be quite crafty... in a lying two faced way.
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