And the dam breaks ...

In remarks today at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, our president said: “The time for talk is over …”

When I read that I thought dear God, is he resigning? What else does he have to offer? No more talk, no more administration. What else have we been given in eleven months? Well, troops of course, and back pedaling.

And spectacularly poor judgment. When the history of the Obama administration is writ, let it be writ large that executive privilege was claimed for the White House Social Secretary. Yes, in the view of the Obama administration, the White House Social Secretary provides policy advice to the president of such sensitivity and import that the functioning of the executive branch would be compromised if she answered a congressional subpoena.

I have been so dispirited by the ongoing saga of health care “reform” legislation that I haven’t been able to write about it in some time. (I would heartily commend Howard Dean’s op ed in yesterday’s Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/16/AR2009121601906.html?sub=AR).

I have to concede that President Obama is far from the only cowardly, craven villain in this fiasco. Harry Reid and Max “Find My Girlfriend a Job” Baucus have also helped redefine “compromise” as “total surrender.” And Ben Nelson and Olympia Snowe lead the list of those attempting to take the legislation hostage over a single issue. Clearly the greater good is only greater under limited circumstances and the motto of the United States Senate is “My Way or the Highway.” I must reserve my particular utmost personal contempt for Joe Lieberman, a narcissistic boor who wouldn’t recognize the good of the nation if it walked up to him wearing a badge reading “Hello, My Name Is: The Good of The Nation.”

Remember children, if a liberal stands up for a matter of principle, he or she is being shrill, obstructionist and, most horrifyingly of all, P.C. If someone on the right follows the same course, he or she is being stalwart, courageous and patriotic.

Although I do say all that with a touch of envy.  I wish that someone, anyone, on the left would be as resolute in standing up for a Medicare buy-in, or a woman's right to choose, or a public option, or no coverage caps ...

This whole sorry spectacle puts me in mind of the old folk tale “Stone Soup.” The peddler comes to a village with a pot and some stones. He builds a fire by the well and adds water to his stones. Curious villagers ask what he is doing and he says. “making stone soup.” Their curiosity is piqued and over time he gets them to contribute carrots and onions and potatoes and chicken and a host of other ingredients until the villagers agree that stone soup is the best dish they have ever tasted.

The Senate had the opportunity to craft legislation that started pretty close to finished stone soup. Instead the Senate has spent the last few months picking out the chicken and the carrots and the onions and all the other ingredients that might make it savory or nutritious until all that Harry Reid is going to have to invoke cloture to get us is a pot of boiling water and some rocks.

It’s not right and it’s not enough.

But don't bother calling or writing your senators, Their minds are already made up and your voice is so much inconsequential background noise.