Okay, this Gawker

[angee_is_mad]

but is it still a must read.

http://gawker.com/5431385/news-of-first-major-progressive-legislation-in-30-years-enrages-liberals

Ugh. Shut up, bill-killing liberals. You know who has more liberal cred than all of you? Bernie Sanders, who secured $10 billion for community health and then voted for cloture.

He would prefer universal single-payer! He introduced an amendment to that end! It did not even make it to a vote, though, because of parliamentary tactics, whee. But he decided, "this bill will help poor and working people, and no bill will hurt them," and so he is using his leverage to attempt to improve it, like a good socialist senator.

He is not throwing a tantrum (though he does get shouty sometimes!) and inventing a new reality in which this bill's failure means we'll totally get a better health care bill next year or something. I mean, what? The options are literally "pass this HANDOUT to the insurance industries (that they are still lobbying against!) that will insure millions of people and improve the social safety net for those in danger of losing their insurance" or "fuck off home to let people continue to die because we got super mad at Senator Fuckface from Connecticut." There is not a third "Alan Grayson and Keith Olbermann and Matt Taibbi are all elected to a new kind of Senate that only needs three votes to pass legislation and they declare us Canada for Christmas" option.

Look — we like Alan Grayson. We will defend him against those centrist "oh but Democrats have to play nice" assholes who say he goes too far when he says truthful things about Rush Limbaugh. Alan Grayson gives good quote and is a credit to the House of Representatives. He should continue to let his freak flag fly.

But jesus, christ, an Alan Grayson 2012 primary challenge against Obama? Obama, who is not just "Bush-lite" but Bush-same! (Remember when Bush attempted to negotiate an international climate deal, pass a jobs-focused economic stimulus, reform the nation's health care industry, and come up with a hopefully coherent plan to end the Afghanistan war in one year? And remember how his attempts at all those things were stymied by an uncooperative and undemocratic Senate, but he still managed to make real and tangible gains on each of them? Oh, no, you probably don't remember that because it was a joke we were making about how you have lost all sense of perspective.)

What happens when Alan Grayson is elected president, exactly? His sharp tongue embarrasses Ben Nelson into supporting a woman's right to choose? A well-timed quip convinces the Republican party to give up on a scorched-earth style of obstructionist opposition that will probably yield them electoral victories next year? He would pull the troops out. There's that! Maybe you would like some members of his cabinet a little more!

But what we actually need, if you like Alan Grayson, is more Alan Graysons in the House and in the Senate. (Well, what we need is the complete abolition of the Senate too, but let's start small and aim big, the way progressives did things in the days before a millionaire sportscaster was their spiritual leader.) The last couple guys broke the nation, basically, and Barack Obama's best quality might be that he has a very realistic idea of how to begin going about fixing some shit.]

[SeattleGirl]

1. I like that.

People who are squawking and screaming about Obama, and who are insisting that someone else could do a better job need a huge dose of reality. If Grayson were President, or Kuchinich, or Dean, or fill-in-the-blank, they would STILL be facing the same nasty Republicans and the same weak-kneed Dems (no not all of them are weak-kneed, but you know which ones are), and the same crappy M$M, and the same squawking screaming agents of the blogosphere.

[angee_is_mad]

3. they are blinded by their self-righteousness

markos was on KO tonight and stepped away from the kill the bill rhetoric while setting the progressives up for getting the credit for the bill when it comes out of conference.

Paraphrasing of course, "We don't like the bill, but because of us it will be a better bill."

[Cha]

2. I've never heard of Gawker..

I like him. I thought Grayson was for going ahead with the Health Care Reform Bill..in the Senate, too?

[angee_is_mad]

4. Self righteous progressives are looking for candidates

to run against Obama in 2012.

Gawker is the gossip/celebrity sister site of Wonkette.