Has Everything That's Going To Be Said Been Said Already On Health Care?

The President last week gave a prime time address over the health care debacle that has the country in fits, one way or another. He didn't really get into too many details (I don't know about you, but I was very surprised by that [/sarcasm]). He did clear up what he said to be outright lies and mistruths on the matter, such as death panels and insurance for illegals, which lead to Joe Wilson making the unfortunate headlines of the evening and making Nancy Pelosi's contort into a shape that can only be described as really, really hilarious.

Conversely, Sen. John McCain went on to the Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien last week to discuss the matter in a more prime time setting, as he is the most respected Republican whose opinion is trusted and therefore the most credible voice of the party and as that setting is the only platform the GOP can wrangle at this point: the late night talk show circuit.

McCain didn't say much either, only that the real problem is that the two aisles are not coming together to speak and work together and that's getting America all angry. This was followed by a cheesy-electric-guitar sequence a la Full House, Growing Pains, Step by Step and every other family-based situational comedy from the early 90's, provided by Max Wienberg and the Tonight Show Band.

So you've got the two most respected voices of the respective parties -- Obama and McCain -- setting up a pretty loose fence, and inside, the same stuff we've been hearing about all summer. "We're not signing this without the public option." "We're not signing this thing if it has the public option." "We'll you're stupid." "Oh yeah? Well, YOU'RE stupid." "I'm going to hold a town hall meeting to explain the crap out of this thing for my constituents." "I'm going to load that meeting with people who don't want to hear anything you're saying, and yell things that I am almost certain you don't want to hear."

And on and on and on. Rinse. Repeat.

I don't think that anything that's going to be said on health care hasn't already been said. We're still waiting for the Senate Finance Committee to get in gear and put something out there that is supposedly going to be able to pay for this sweeping yet seemingly necessary reform. And barring some unexpected new kink they might throw into their bill -- which I'm told is not going to include a public option -- basically, you'll mash up all the House and Senate bills and voila! Health care reform bill.

Good luck getting it passed. The document, which I'm sure is just going to be a hellish gargantuan of a document that must feed on smaller House and Senate bills for sustenance, is probably going to have language that will offend both the right and the left. The former will dig in their heels, and the latter will use their majority to push. I don't see it getting passed.

Is there anything else to say? I think so. Nobody's willing to play ball. The left says they want a bipartisan bill, but have relinquished very little. The right also says they want a bipartisan bill, but have done quite a lot to simply kill the reform dead.

I think one of the biggest problems that the right has with the bill is that they believe the public option is simply a foot in the door for a single-payer system down the eventual road, which a lot of folks aren't going to get behind. The left seems mystified that they have a majority status and somehow their polling numbers have hit the bottom of the barrel since this health care "discussion" got started.

Politics is about giving, taking, and making deals, then gussying them up to show off to your constituency. Very rarely is it about seeing who's going to be the first team to loosen their grip.

Health Care Showdowns and Fisticuffs

People rising up and taking their message to the streets used to be one of the most powerful visual statements an organization or movement could make. The Civil Rights movement has been visually epitomized by images of folks like Martin Luther King, Jr., locked arm-in-arm with like-minded brothers and sisters in places like Birmingham and Memphis.

For the uninvolved layman, the nation's capitol and all of its monuments of the country's genesis and origins provides a potent stage, and has carried the messages of numerous movements, such as the Vietnam War protests at the Washington Monument's reflecting pool.

Grassroots movements aim to evoke that imagery and appeal, convincing and educating the common, everyday person to take up their picket and join the fight for whatever it is the organizers or those who have the most vested interest in the movement is proposing. Grassroots hope to appeal to that everyman and in doing so, multiply their ranks exponentially.

It's the whole point of any political campaign in general: Tell your message to as many people as there are willing to listen, and get them to tell others, so that they'll vote for you. That's pretty much the whole ball of wax right there. It's a fine method of pushing not only candidates, but also politically-driven agendas.

Like this health care thing, which has gone from complex and frustrating to loud and raucous. Democratic senators and congressional delegates are being met by what Sean Hannity would call mobs of people at their usually mundane town hall meetings to discuss the goings-on in Washington, with the topic du jour being, of course, health care reform.

They are met with taunts, jeers, and rowdy chants. Some even burn the politicians in effigy, which is not only over-the-line and overly aggressive, but outdated and exceedingly unoriginal. Democrats have been responding with outrage, leading some, like Arkansas' Sen. Blanche Lincoln to say they are "disrespectful and un-American," a statement which she later retracted.

The most common dismissal of these former TEA-partiers-turned "Obamacare"-protesters is that it's "Astroturfing," or fake-grassroots. They accuse the organizers to rile up and organizing these people to get out and throw about 8,000 monkey wrenches into the fast moving gears of the legislative machine.

The problem with that line of defense is that Democrats and Health Care Reform advocates do plenty of grassrooting and astroturfing of their own.

They send out pamphlets. They call people (and, aw horsefeathers, always around dinner time, too!) at their homes to talk about health care reform and why it needs to be done as quickly as possible and why Republicans and moderate Democrats are just wrong about everything, but especially health care reform, etc. etc. etc.

The pot is calling the kettle black, and the kettle is firing back about the pot being black, too. But if the pot and kettle have both been black for as long as cookware has been around, why would the pot or the kettle start acting offended by it (Ed. Note - Rampant Metaphor Running Amok? Check.)?

I think it has something to do with the lack of appeal of the march-on-wherever, or at least the diminishing of its impact. It's sort of like using a really good curse word: If it's used rarely, and only in appropriate situation, it connotes an appropriate amount of emotions or seriousness, or whatever the user is trying to portend. But if it's a guy who uses the word in the rigmarole of daily life, in any and all uses, in any and all contexts or mindsets, it loses its luster.

It'll still grab some people's attention, but for the most part, it'll just be a part of the droning noise. Grassroots movements are still potent, as seen by both health care former advocates and antagonists, and still can rile up a great bevy of those in the middle. But the fighting on either side, I would contend, isn't sneaky, dirty, underhanded, or a sign of a lack of message.

On either side, I say again. Those currently in the spotlight are the rightward health care dissuaders, crashing these town hall meetings. They are certainly going a little overboard, with reports of fistfighting going on over it. But their presence should not only be expected, but if their opposition is worth anything, countered.

And for the record, whining about their organization, when your side is clearly just as organized but not as effective, is not a good parry. Not saying Democrats or health care advocates should harpoon a big, stuffed John Boehner facsimile, but surely they've got some other statement or plan.