Merry Christmas --Our Long National Nightmare Is Over

The nightmare being the Senate debate on healthcare--the second longest debate in Senate history. TR couldn't do it. FDR couldn't do it. Harry Truman couldn't do it. LBJ did some of it. Richard Nixon couldn't do it. Bill Clinton couldn't do it. But the colored man with the strange name and big ears did it! Congratulations to all the Democrats in both the Senate and the House for having the courage of their convictions and fighting a campaign orchestrated by the insurance companies, the whole Washington lobbyist corps and the radical right against health reform. And shame on Republicans for not participating in offering anything constructive to the debate. Cowed by the teabaggers, the Republicans fled the playing field for fear of alienating people we don't even know vote.

And whatever this means for the political fortunes of President Barack Obama, he kept his eye on the prize and it was worth it.

Naturally for anything in stoogeland, nothing can ever have a neat ending. A series of Republican attorney generals are researching the constitutionality of the act. Senator Ensign, who has had a rather loose understanding of his marriage vows, has discovered the constitution and is challenging it. And Senator Snowe from Maine flat out declares it's unconstitutional. Lindsey Graham is concerned that African-Americans in South Carolina may benefit from it. But as the great Bayard Rustin once told me,"remember there are millions more poor whites than blacks." Now news this Christmas eve is that Republicans are trying to stop the reconcilation of the House and Senate bills.

We can expect the racial theme to be picked up over the next few weeks. That poor Blacks will receive healthcare at your expense or some such nonsense. I expect to hear Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck to sound the reparations theme.

One of the most amazing developments in this whole affair has been the Molotov-Rippentrop treaty between Grover Norquist and Jane Hamisher of Fire Lake website to attack the bill. It seems only appropriate for Grover with his strange Wahbabist background and relationship with Jack Abramoff to first attack Jewish Senator Bernie Sanders. This alliance between conservatives and progressives is one of the most recent low points in our political history.

For my money, the Sanders amendment which will expand the free clinics in all fifty states and serve over 20 millions Americans, even providing dental care, is what makes the whole bill worthwhile. There is rich irony in a Black president and a Jewish Senator doing more for rural Americans than anything since the New Deal. I love it. And maybe the actual political return for this will be visible by 2012.

Harry Reid was right--the bill marks the moment when American acknowledges that health care is a right, not a privilege. Merry Christmas, Harry.