David Broder got paid to write this:
Obama has not intervened with a heavy hand as the bill has moved through the House and Senate, but now it is time for him to act.
It would help a lot if he reached out personally to those few Republicans who might still want to improve the bill rather than sink it. And it would help even more if he shamed the Democrats into rescinding some of the crasser bargains they made to buy votes along the way.
The country would welcome even a few signs that this legislation has bipartisan support.
Then we could applaud its final passage and take our thumbs from our noses.
How do you reach out and get a sign that Republicans support a bill that they just unanimously rejected? Olympia Snowe just voted ‘aye’ on an amendment that calls the mandate ‘unconstitutional.’ Is she going to turn around and vote for the bill anyway? It would be hard to wank harder to the God of bipartisanship than David Broder. No amount of proof seems capable of teaching him what this generation of Republicans is all about.
