Healthcare Reform

Since I am not in any way qualified to comment intelligently on the merits of the bill or its political implications except to repeat the wise words of the Paul Krugmans and Ezra Kleins of the world I will instead do what I do best--draw a pop-culture analogy from an entertainment-saturated childhood. My point is simple, cliched even if you want to mean about it, but still I think it is worth telling.

You really couldn't make this stuff up.

Think about it, the best piece of mass entertainment ever to take on the political arena on a national level was the West Wing, a show about as well written and beautifully acted as humanly possible. And yet, could you imagine the West Wing spending an entire season on the formulation and passing of a bill on one friggin issue? Where luminaries like Arlen Specter (the traitor/hero depending on who you talk to), Joe Lieberman (the narcissist), Max Baucus (affable guy probably out of his league), Bart Stupak (the guy who no one ever heard of who inexplicably holds the fate of history-making legislation in his hands) and Scott Brown (the heartthrob) trade the spotlight one after the other in a marathon so ridiculous the media, let alone the public, can barely summon the strength continue paying attention to it. And this is not even to mention the major players like Obama, Reid and Pelosi, let alone the conservative chorus who have whipped up such a frenzy of demonization that a ridiculously large percentage of conservatives seriously believe that Congress is about to pass a bill that would result in large scale, government-sanctioned killing of old people--in a representative democracy no less!

Even if you did somehow fit the entire health-care fight into some sort of fictionalized mass media production you would only begin to get a glimpse of the Obama presidency so far (Afghanistan/Iraq, economic meltdown, torture legacy anyone?), a point which only begins to evoke just how profound the challenges confronted by the President so far in his term have been.

I for one am really proud of the President and, for the first time in a long while...let's be serious--probably ever--the Democrats in Congress as well for actually doing what they were sent to Washington for in the first place. Millions of people's lives will be a little easier once this bill goes into effect. For thousands more it'll probably be the difference between losing their house and saving someone in their family.

What a treat it is to witness our Union "perfect" itself in such a profound way. It appears that my journey from Obama-supporting idealist to the brink of complete and total cynicism is now halted. May it continue.