A year after the passage of the heath care reform bill, former Rep. Bart Stupak says that strangers still curse him out on the streets and he remains worried about his physical safety. I don’t condone assaults on former members of Congress, no matter what kind of voting record they compiled in office. But I have to say that Bart Stupak brought this needlessly on himself. He decided to dishonestly suggest that the health care bill would subsidize abortion on demand when it did nothing of the sort. The end result of Stupak’s dishonest water-carrying for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops was that he convinced the right that he voted for abortion funding at the same time that he infuriated the left by interfering with women’s right to have their reproductive health covered on their health care plans, even if they planned to pay for it out of their own pocket.
He guaranteed that everyone who had an even passing interest in the health care debate would hate his guts. And he did nothing to make a better bill. He just helped make the country even stupider than it already is. How do jackasses get rewarded for this kind of behavior?
These days, Stupak is still talking about healthcare, but as a fellow at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. When his fellowship ends next month, Stupak plans to join up with a law firm in Michigan or Washington.
They get to teach our best and brightest.