I read that and my first thought, which should have been WTF!?, was instead, alas, more along the lines of, {{sigh}}.
"So we'll see how this ends, but I don't want the process to be filibustered to failure, which unfortunately, many senators are trying to do," Durbin added. "I want to make sure that we do something positive for the American people."
And I say again: {{sigh}}.
Why do we always seem to roll over and fall down just when everything seems truly possible?
Then, however, I started getting mad. These are the people we elected to do, among other things, this job--this specific job--passing health care reform, and they are about to let the minority play them yet again?
So, though I actually am not the kind who writes many letters to my congressmen, I could not allow the moment to pass without making some kind of statement. This is what I sent to my senator:
Dear Senator Durbin,
The Huffington Post today has a front page article that states that you are now open to abandoning the public option in favor of co-ops as a measure for "compromise." I sincerely hope that this is not true.
Along with millions of others, I have pushed hard during recent elections to provide for a Democratic majority--and now supermajority--in order to make amends for the disastrous policies that have been visited upon this country by your colleagues across the aisle. Now that Democrats are firmly in place because of a promise--a PROMISE--for "real change," how do you expect to hold onto those voters who put you there if they see that you cannot follow through on that promise?
The GOP, with a weak President, managed to get its bills passed *even when they were in the minority* because they stood their ground. They continue to stand their ground today. They do not believe in compromise. Personally, I feel that it is a worthwhile and positive goal, but that it is not as important as the "real change" that was promised to the American people.
Please, Senator Durbin, do NOT back down from the public option. Encourage the President to take a firm stand demanding that the bill contain such an option, and then rally the Senate--YOUR Senate, regardless of the GOP or the more conservative among the Democrats. If you need to use conciliation, use it. But *don't* let this historic opportunity pass us by with yet another empty promise, yet another failed effort at real change.
I have voted for you every time I have been asked to, Senator, and I have never written to you before. Now, as one of your constituents, I am asking that you remember why you are there and why millions of people replaced the GOP majority with a Democratic one. The ideas of the other side are what my fourteen year old daughter would call "epic failures," but I'm terrified that, if you and your colleagues let us down at this crucial point in time, the result might be a backlash that will end up ultimately restoring them to power.
I am not naive. I know that you are a politician and that politics is, as they say, "the art of the possible." But why, with the GOP reduced to making reprehensible claims about "Obama Death Panels" and other bits of made-up insanity just to get a foothold, is it not, at this moment in history, POSSIBLE to do something truly historic?
I don't know if the message is any good or if it has any hope of doing any good, but I feel better having sent it.
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