Public option or public humiliation?

 

The public option lives. So says Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who says he will include it in the health care legislation when he brings it to the Senate floor for debate in a few weeks.

But there is no guarantee that the public option won't become the Democrats' public humiliation, as aides say he is several votes short of the 60 votes needed to get it passed.

Curse those Blue Dogs. May all their collars shrink so that they cough up the kibble fed to them by the insurance industry.

And count me among those who believe that the public option needs to pass. It is the least the Democrats can do. It would be a sign that they are not mere invertebrates, worming about making compromise after compromise. Let them rent a spine and get the job done.

Single payer is not even under consideration, for goodness sakes, and the public option would at least be something to give the private insurance companies some competition - to them the scariest specter out there this Halloween.

If the Republicans are going to call even the most mild health-care proposals government-run health care or socialism, the Democrats might as well give them something to really complain about. If you are not prepared to compromise, you deserve what you get. The Democrats are spineless; the Republicans are useless.

By the way, my column tomorrow will look familiar to those who read my last posting about the frat house White House. Mr. Toadsly dismissed this as a "tempest in a teapot" - and he is right. But this was my cup of tea, so I decided to go back to the teapot one more time. Think of it as recycling.