Bart Stupak, A Pocket Full of Mumbles

The horse trading went long into the night. In the end the House Democrats bought, cajoled, wrangled and bullied enough votes to pass the health care debacle. The battle is far from over and will range into next November and beyond.

As a far right wing nut job I will enjoy the coming downfall of the Democratic Party. I will enjoy the stunned looks on the faces of those who will lose their union and employer health care plans if this legislation stays around long enough to take effect. I will enjoy the coming revolt of the middle and upper class taxpayers. I could of course, be wrong. Maybe the American people are tired of being free and maybe rugged individualism is dead. Maybe the vast majority of my neighbors are looking forward to the never ending growth of the Federal Government. Maybe everyone except we gun owning, SUV driving, meat eating, smaller government, right wing nut job pro lifers want the nanny state.

So now that the first battle of the “health care reform” movement is over we need to ask some questions. Is that it from the left? Will there be no further movement to start a government option? Will there be no push to get to a single payer system? If you believe that you need to get in the line that starts right behind Rep. Bart Stupak.

Rep. Stupak has become the Neville Chamberlain of our time.

Chamberlain, for those of you who attended public school, was the British prime minister who returned from a meeting with Hitler and thought he had reigned in the plans of the Nazis by getting them to sign a piece of paper. Stupak has traded his principled stand for the unborn for less.

Although I don’t approve I can understand someone like Mary Landrieu or Ben Nelson selling their vote for a payoff to their state. What did Bart Stupak get for giving up his values? He got Obama’s promise that he would issue an executive order. This brings to mind a line from the old Simon and Garfunkel song, “The Boxer”, “I have squandered my resistance for a pocketful of mumbles, such are promises.”

Which has the greater force under the law, an Act of Congress or an Executive Order? If you answered an Act of Congress you are correct. So if the President’s Executive Order for Congressman Stupak is determined to be in conflict with the bill then the order is out and the bill is in. I would believe that if this Executive Order isn’t in conflict with the bill then there would have been no point in Mr. Stupak making a big deal about the abortion language all along.

Even if I am wrong, does Rep. Stupak think that the left wing of his party will now stop their push to have federal dollars fund unlimited abortion? He is waving his agreement and thinking he has done well and right. What he has really done is taking his place next to Chamberlain as one of the great political fools of all time.