If you had told me a year ago that Harry Reid was capable of taking the lead and adjoining -ership to it, my acidic skepticism would have eaten through your skin, muscle and bone until only trace elements of a human being remained.
The Democratic Majority Leader had a reputation for being unremarkable, cautious, skirting feebleness and otherwise being a poor choice for the head of anything. Even as recently as a month ago, we were likening him to a beech tree buckling under the weight of natural forces in the health care debate. So what changed? What chain reaction gave old Reidy a backbone that, though to the rest of us looks a little fragile, for him is as strong as steel?
No idea. But man up Harry Reid did, revealing his own version of the Senate health care bill. Said bill, far from being a sloppy blow job to the insurance industry, actually includes a public option (with the opportunity for a state to opt out if it would rather weed out its working poor the good old fashioned way: letting them die senselessly), softens the anti-choice language Bart Stupak inserted in the House health care legislation, would ensure coverage for a full 94 percent of Americans, and has a price tag that comes in under the $900 billion the Obama administration set as a limit.
Now, to watch a handful of self-important Senators insured by government health plans destroy that option for the rest of America…
