Summer notes

Enjoy your vacation, sir. Polls suggest that we could both use a break from one another.

And when you are relaxing with your family please reflect on some basic circumstances with respect to healthcare reform that has soured most of the public on it without ever having or even needing to read it.

Without needing to read the bill, Americans become highly suspicious of something as important as healthcare reform being ram-rodded through Congress with the hopes of getting it passed before the August break. What was the big hurry?

Without needing to read the bill, Americans become highly suspicious when Nancy Pelosi who did such a bang-up job on the stimulus bill is given another crack at a multi-hundred billion (trillion ?) dollar piece of legislation and is given 10 weeks time to do it. What could possibly go wrong?

Without needing to read the bill, Americans become highly suspicious of a plan for which the provisions the very people voting on it and their politically-favored allies are exempt. Healthcare reform for ye but not for thee?

Without needing to read the bill, Americans become highly suspicious of a 1,000 page bill that is ostensibly about providing insurance to the uninsured. Just that takes over 1,000 pages?

Without needing to read the bill, Americans become highly suspicious and take great umbrage to being called “un-American” and being compared to goon squads and Nazis for merely opposing various points in the bill.

And mostly, without needing to read the bill, Americans become highly suspicious of a bill that the people who will be responsible for voting on the bill and who are telling them it’s all a good deal… have not read the bill themselves and worse make a mockery of the notion of even reading legislation.

This, the summer of ass-kickings has been an informative one all around. Democracy has been in action as an increasingly-isolated political class has seen fit to act in their own best interests instead of the country’s and which has resulted in a backlash not seen in years.

We forgot where we saw it, but an approval poll showed a steady decline in support for the Democratic party brand over the last few months and a flat-lined indicator for the G.O.P. over those corresponding months instead of any sort of increase. This speaks to the degree of frustration the voting public has with our governing class, currently, and sagging lack of trust and confidence that any party will be able to solve this nation’s domestic woes. What took the Republicans 8 years to do has been accomplished by the Democrats in only 6 months.