The Other

Now that a Democrat is in the White House,
the Right can call Obama "Hitler"
as much as they want
without Howard Kurtz's castigation.
Suck on that, single Move-On contest entrant.

There are huge flaws in the health care plan (d)evolving through Congress, for example insurance companies and drug manufacturers will be more profitable than ever, even with a public option. But it will be "marginally" better than what we have now (is this the part where we mumble USA, USA?). Nevertheless, the right wing has convinced many a 50 plus year old white person to take to the streets something they managed never to do about, oh, an illegal war and its wasted trillions. Their ironic mantra "Government should stay out of our medicare".

We live in a culture where one side is led by rational accommodationists who want to get along and the other, smaller side, led by a delusional, angry, id who want the majority to surrender. Millions of people "hoped", if nothing else, the tenor of politics would be improved only to find that racist, bigoted messages and implications to violence are more prevalent and more tolerated: Steve Pearlstein of the Washington Post:

Health reform is a test of whether this country can function once again as a civil society -- whether we can trust ourselves to embrace the big, important changes that require everyone to give up something in order to make everyone better off. Republican leaders are eager to see us fail that test. We need to show them that no matter how many lies they tell or how many scare tactics they concoct, Americans will come together and get this done.

If health reform is to be anyone's Waterloo, let it be theirs.

Oh, if only.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

(pic from here)