The preview of the next few weeks of our stupid discourse

Amid a weekend in which the Obama White House struck back at critics over health care, decrying those who do nothing to help and only offer criticism, attacking deceptive insurers standing in the way of meaningful reform, and ohbythewaywe'renotpushingforthepublicoptionshhhhhdon'ttellanyone, we learned of another plan for health care: the Republican's plan to derail the debate. I know, isn't that what they've been doing for the past 6 months? Apparently not. But the new plan is so transparently dishonest that you do have to kind of respect their attempt to gussy it up with proclamations of "no seriously you guys, we're gonna be telling the truth this time" and serious words about how the knowledge of the American people is what's going to finally derail this thing. Whatever guys.

With Democratic leaders and White House officials holed up in Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) office negotiating a final bill, Republicans are demanding a deceleration of the process and moving to define whatever plan that emerges as a combination of Medicare cuts, tax increases, higher insurance premiums and rising overall costs.
...
“The votes are the reality, so the only way you win this thing if you’re in our camp is if the American people are completely on your side,” a senior Republican Senate aide said. “To have a positive outcome and get back to doing what we think is good for our health care system, we need to have the American people understand this thing.
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”McConnell said Republicans are going to “insist” on several weeks of debate and argued an issue like health care — equivalent to 20 percent of the national economy — deserves more than the four weeks accorded the most recent farm bill and at least as much time as the seven weeks given the No Child Left Behind education reform effort and the eight weeks given to an energy bill earlier this decade.

Yes, because nothing screams "educating the American public on issues of importance" like the GOP caucus of the US Senate. But there's nothing like the notion that after almost a full year of a health care push, six months of serious debate on every committee's bill, and an intense last few weeks on finalizing and reconciling various bills, that the thing we need is more debate. Especially when that "debate" is going to involve trying to regurgitate all the death panel stuff that didn't work under the pretense of "knowledge".

Yay! That's alright Health Care Reform Debate, the political process surrounding you has already sunken to the lowest levels possible. What's a few more kicks to your lifeless corpse? Then we can get on with the business of making the smallest, least substantive improvements to our health care system and maybe moving our standing in world health rankings to the low thirties. Just a few more stupid, stupid weeks left.

Sotomayor: Day 2

We're into Day two of the Sotomayor nomination and we're seeing some themes reveal themselves. On the Democrat side the watchwords seem to be about biography, "compelling personal story", "mainstream", "agrees with conservatives on stuff", "moderate", and chortled declarations that if Republicans can't support her, they can't support anyone. Meanwhile the right's reaction has been split into two parts. From the right wing commentators we've got some variation of "half-wit affirmative action harpy", "possible immigrant", "reverse racist", and "most liberal person ever". As for elected Republicans, well I don't know, do you think there were talking points?

Orrin Hatch (R-Utah): "I will focus on determining whether Judge Sotomayor is committed to deciding cases based only on the law as made by the people and their elected representatives, not on personal feelings or politics."

Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.): "We will thoroughly examine her record to ensure she understands that the role of a jurist in our democracy is to apply the law even-handedly, despite their own feelings or personal or political preferences."

Charles Grassley (R-Iowa): "The Judiciary Committee should take time to ensure that the nominee will be true to the Constitution and apply the law, not personal politics, feelings or preferences."

John Cornyn (R-Tx.): "She must prove her commitment to impartially deciding cases based on the law, rather than based on her own personal politics, feelings, and preferences."

Uh-oh, a damned woman with her damned feelings and opinions is gonna muck up the He-Man Supreme Court Club. Obama didn't nominate a robot or a man, so now we have to deal with emotions and a uterus blocking the cold Constitutional calculations of the finely honed legal gland. I'm disappointed too. The Supreme Court is no place for feelings, which you only hear about when women are nominated.

Eventually we'll realize this and replace the justices with an emotionless robot voice connected to a complex series of punch cards and wires that booms down judgments from on high. Then we'll have perfect justice, until a week later when SCOTUSbot judges that the only way to save us is to enslave us. Until then we'll have to deal with Sotomayor's feelings and the fact that those feelings will make no significant alteration to the court's 5-4 makeup.