A Ton of Bricks...

"Hit me like a ton of bricks": a colloquialism that expresses missing the obvious when it is staring at you right in the face.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/12/19/health.care/index.html: an apparent deal has been reached in the health care debate, one that probably won't look like the one Independents and Progressives voted for last November.

I asked myself: "Why?"

What follows is admittedly, a "Conspiracy Theory." I am postulating something I have no data on, no research, etc. I am just applying common sense and putting it in the public record (this blog) to invite comment.

"Why?" The answer: "The body politic."

The health care debate has put in plain sight the fact that Republicans and so-called "Blue Dog/Conservative" Democrats are in the pockets of the health care industry (an oxymoron) for campaign donations. They therefore, serve their masters (the true body politic), not us.

That means: if you're conservative, you can have eight years of Reagan, four years of Bush the Elder, eight more years of Bush the junior, sandwiching 18 years around 8 years of Clinton and NOT eliminate abortion rights in the United States...because they can't.

The Supreme Court decided Brown versus Board of Education on a 9 - 0 vote. Eisenhower sent troops to Arkansas not because he LOVED black people: it was the law.

As much as anti-abortion has become the "litmus test" of conservatives, a shred of common sense would say it's a push-button to get people to vote their way without doing anything about their concerns.

Bush the junior supported Roe vs. Wade not because he believed in it...it's the law.

If a lower court were to argue successfully to the Supreme Court, still with its 5 - 4 Conservative Majority, Roe vs. Wade would be overturned as far as federal support.

President Obama would probably have his misgivings, but he'd have to support their decision nonetheless.

Then it gets complicated: it would go to each state's Supreme Court for a decision that conservatives have always championed: "states rights." Some would opt to continue abortion; some (like Utah, I'd expect) would not.

Back to health care reform: a lot of Independents and Progressives are outraged at the Democratic Party and the President for not using their majority in the House and the Senate to pass some muscular legislation that Republicans would do - moderate and conservative - in lock-step with each other.

Why are the Democrats taking the risk of losing so huge in November 2010 and 2012 when they won so huge in 2006 and 2008?

Answer: neither party are hurting for jobs.

Harold Ford (Democrat) was defeated for reelection to his congressional seat in Tennessee: he's an MSNBC political commentator. Pat Buchanan ran for the Republican presidential nomination: he's an MSNBC political commentator.

Abortion (both parties - for/against); War (both parties - for/against); the Economy (both parties - don't have a clue): these are water cooler conversations we have at work. We get sidetracked by these conversations that don't put a DIME in our pockets or JOBS in our country. It's bait-and-switch: the parties "change," but the outcome for industry stays the same. Do you think Big Insurance is paying 1.4 million a day to lobbyist and sponsoring the buses for the anti-health care reform rallies...to lose?

Yaphet Kotto said in the movie "Blue Collar" (1978): [Smokey James] "They'll do anything to keep you on their line. They pit the lifers against the new boys, the old against the young, the black against the white - ANYTHING."

Each party's members want desperately to hold onto their offices because they get a healthy retirement for LIFE and a cost-of-living adjustment: http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/uscongress/a/congresspay.htm; http://www.senate.gov/reference/resources/pdf/RL30631.pdf. President Obama's not going to be hurting either, whether he completes his presidency in 2012 or 2016: http://www.senate.gov/reference/resources/pdf/98-249.pdf.

If the Democrats truly are swept out of office in the midterms and general election, they'll wind up working as "consultants" for some of the very entities: Pharmaceutical and Insurance - they were voted in to "oppose."

And, of course, they can always resurface on CNN, FOX and MSNBC as...

(WELL paid) political commentators!