Good For Them

More like this, asap.

Good for Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY), Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), and my Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) making serious noises about scuttling the corporatist crapola outcome now hurtling forward through the last votes of the Senate healthcare reform process.

I'm not saying "good for them" because I personally think we should "kill the bill."

I'm not saying "good for them" because I think Dems could magically get a better bill starting over with the same Congress we have still intact.

I'm not saying "good for them" because I think everybody else has sold us out for not saying the same thing.

I'm not saying "good for them" because I think other fighting liberals are folding in public instead of fighting because I think the fighters are assessing the terrain or the desirability of likely outcomes much differently than the apparent folders are.

I'm not saying "good for them" because I think Obama fooled us and has gotten the bill he seeeecretly wanted all along (or even that he got 95% of what he wanted, as he himself is reported as saying as he goes headfirst into the framing war for ambient-informed voters who aren't following this like we are but who do care enough to vote anyway and make a difference when they're in the mood and who Dems very much need to be in the mood).

I'm not saying "good for them" because I mistakenly think they won't actually settle for less than they are saying they will when confronted with the prospect of passage or no passage when they care about passage and the people helped by passage and they are up against assholes who actually don't care if it doesn't pass.

No, I'm saying "good for them" because the negotiations are not over and saying what they are saying is what you have to say to get anything improved for the better and certainly what you have to say if you don't want this thing to get much worse before the end.

So, again, good for them, and good for us.