Apocalypse Deferred

Personal note: Exactly one year ago this day I wrote the first entry in my new blog. In it I took Meghan McCain to task for being, well, Meghan McCain. Writing "Careless Whispers" has been a supremely interesting experience for me and I've enjoyed it very much. When I wrote my first entry I thought I would run out of things to say after like 5 posts but now, after 73 posts, I feel I'm just hitting my stride. Sometime this summer I will be posting my 100th entry and will take a look back then. But until that time, I thank everyone for reading my blog and the great feedback you have provided. You would do me a great honor if you continue to read my ramblings.

After more than a year of bickering and fighting, including a summer full of testy town hall meetings, innumerable marches and protests, the highly entertaining spectacle of insanely misspelled signs and endless commentary and disinformation campaigns, health care reform became law of the land when an obviously pleased Barack Obama signed the bill in a jubilant ceremony at the White House. As we are constantly reminded, the fight is not yet over and the Republicans are girding their wrinkled, pasty loins for an Armageddon scenario of plans to "repeal" the law and poke holes in the federal requirements under the guise of "states rights."

I suppose we can't expect the Republicans to do anything else, but graceful losers they are not. In fact on Sunday night when the House of Representatives was taking their final ratification votes the Repubs had to hide behind unborn babies and try to get the whole bill referred back to committee (e.g., killed) for not "protecting the unborn." This was preceded earlier in the afternoon by opponents screaming racist and homophobic slurs to members of Congress and even spitting at one of them. Such a lovely example to show the world. The attempt to use the abortion issue for their own nefarious purposes stunk to high heaven of back-against-the-wall desperation and scorched-earth policy - they were prepared to do anything, no matter how ridiculous or cowardly, to try to scuttle all the effort to reach this point. Luckily, it did not work, but it did result in the hilariously surrealistic scene of Rep. Bart Stupak, a staunch anti-abortionist and until then the darling of the Republican opposition for nearly torpedoing the whole bill over abortion funding, being called a "baby killer" by some misinformed moron from Texas.

So the legal challenges are only just starting, and we are going to hear about attempts to derail health care reform far into the foreseeable future. The task of carrying out reform has just begun and it's not going to be pretty or pleasant, despite all the other extremely pressing matters we must address as a nation. But probably the most important task that remains to be done is to get Rush Limbaugh out of the country, because he promised on his radio program in a very public fashion to leave the country if health care reform passes. I strongly believe we should hold him to that promise and get his big fat obnoxious ass out of the country and over to some other country we really hate, like North Korea. After all, if they threw his flabby bulk into a big stew pot and cooked him up, he could feed all of Pyongyang for over a year.

The Republicans are spitting mad and all look like they took a huge crap in their Depends and can't find anyone to change them. They are vowing revenge in the midterm elections and while that is not a threat to take lightly, so much can happen in six months and once the American people get to see that health care really will make many lives better, their attitudes will soften and maybe they'll see that it was a good idea after all. But history was truly made last Sunday, March 21, 2010, and we will be looking back on that date for many, many years to come.