By now you’ve all heard of the “Slaughter Solution” to the House Democrats’ dilemma — how to pass health care reform without actually having to vote for the Senate bill:
House Rules Chairwoman Louise Slaughter is prepping to help usher the healthcare overhaul through the House and potentially avoid a direct vote on the Senate overhaul bill, the chairwoman said Tuesday.
Slaughter is weighing preparing a rule that would consider the Senate bill passed once the House approves a corrections bill that would make changes to the Senate version.
As the Arizona Republic described this unique new non-voting method of voting,
Some House Democrats are proposing a novel way of passing a health-care reform bill, which at the moment is stuck in limbo between the Senate and House.
Just “deem” it passed. No “up or down” vote, as President Barack Obama requested. Indeed, no vote on the reform bill at all. Just . . . declare it passed, and that is that.
Briefly, House Rules Committee Chairwoman Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., is working on a plan that would have the House vote on a “rule” bill accompanying the health-care bill, rather than the bill itself. The thinking is that this would provide political cover to lawmakers who could tell angry constituents they did not vote for the controversial health-care bill. House leaders simply would move to “deem” the health-care reform bill as passed, thus alleviating House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of the burden of rounding up votes.
Newt Gingrich had the best line about the Dems flocking to Slaughter:
Last year, the House was passing bills without reading them. This year, they’re passing bills without voting on them.
If the Democrats’ behavior were portrayed in a movie, viewers would not find it credible. (On the other hand, if it were in a Saturday Night Live skit no one would find it funny — just another routine description of how Democrats behave when they want to pass something the public abhors.)
Speaking of movies, I found the best description of what’s going on now in a book about Hollywood — screenwriter William Goldman’s Adventures in the Screen Trade (which I happened to see at a friend’s house), p. xi:
During the holiday season of ’81-’82, sixteen films were released by the major studios. Of those, only one — On Golden Pond — was a runaway success. And ten of the sixteen each lost more than ten million dollars. One major studio executive told me recently, “Of course the failures are upsetting. But there have always been failures. What’s got us so immobilized now is whatever it is we’re making, we’re missing he audience by a wider margin than ever before. We don’t know what they want. All we do know is that they don’t want what we’re giving them….”
Again, this is the worst period within memory.By the time this book sees print, it may well be the best period within memory. The pont being this: Movies are a gold-rush business.”
So is politics, or at least Deem-ocratic politics in the age of Obama. Until he took office and began doing things, all Deem-ocrats and many normal people thought Obama was golden. Now they know that all that glitters is not gold.
