"Fuck off, wingers. We don't need you."

The Rude One on health care legislation:

The push for health care reform needs to be presented as a civil rights movement.

That's the bottom line, but let's put it at the top here: in the arguments about public options and co-ops and whatever, the left, in Congress and elsewhere, has allowed the right to control the language of the debate. And instead of arguing morality and greater good, this has all been about economics.
...

Make it into the difference between being for a right and against a right. And that means taking all the risks that accompany the granting of a civil right.

At this point, we could continue to go over the myriad ways that the Obama administration and congressional Democrats have screwed this up like Jerry Lewis in a movie where he's asked to build a nuclear bomb. [...]

God, the lies conservatives spout when it comes to the perceived evils of giving people rights. [...]

[...] Now, with little time left before this debate comes to an end, there's no way to appeal to reason anymore. It doesn't work. The death-panel-look-it's-socialism gang has demonstrated that clearly. We don't have to lie. But we need to take it out of political theory and sell it as something courageous: we who want health care for all are good, brave people. The ones who don't are cowardly and bad. Do you want to be courageous or afraid?

Of course the Dems want to be courageous. Everyone does. Trouble is, they're institutionally cowardified.

Mostly, though, there's only one real solution: Democrats have to have the guts to tell Republicans that they're no longer part of the process. They have not negotiated in good faith and they're not gonna vote for shit, no matter how watered down. It's gotta be "Fuck off, fuckers" and bar the door and pass what needs passing.

Unfortunately, that would take balls the Dems don't have. And aren't likely to get.