First, let's channel Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade":
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred (two-hundred eighty)
"Forward the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns," he said
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred. (two-hundred eighty)
"Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Someone had blunder'd:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred. (two-hundred eighty)
But still, you Democrats charge. Still you vote for a bill the American public has repudiated, after extensive debate, by 18 points. Still you back legislation that seniors oppose 2 to 1. Still you use your majorities to pass the single most unpopular piece of legislation in recent history.
Civil rights, Social Security, women's suffrage — all of Majority Leader Harry Reid's metaphors — were popular and had broad approving majorities. This bill has the opposite: a nation paralyzed with fear for what you are about to do to its healthcare.
Will you listen to the elderly who absorb 40 percent of medical care and not to the AARP, which you have bought by way of a promise to eliminate Medicare Advantage?
Will you listen to the doctors of America, 2-1 in opposition, and not to the American Medical Association, which you have bludgeoned into submission via your threats of reimbursement cuts?
Will you stop to examine how, as Democrats, you can vote to slice $500 billion from Medicare and cut home healthcare? Former comrades-in-arms, former party-mates, do not commit party-cide by passing this bill!
Is this to be your epitaph? That you put all healthcare under government control? That your legacy is to be the waiting list to see a doctor? That the memorial to your public service is to be the denial of care at a bureaucrat's whim?
Many of you must know that you are sacrificing your careers. Can Reid, Blanche Lincoln, Byron Dorgan, and others really believe they will return?
Can any of you believe you will remain in the majority after you have so flouted the obvious will of your constituents?
Why does this pied piper have such power over you? His approval is sinking in every poll at a pace unprecedented for presidents. If he promises you judgeships, ambassadorships, Cabinet posts or other patronage to enliven your retirement, can you doubt that there is but a two-year term in the offing?
And think about what the deficit you are creating will do to your country. The nation you already have burdened with so much debt that you know and we all know that inflating the currency is the only way out!
In your souls, you must know that the skyrocketing cost of the system you now put in place will animate deficits in five years and 10 years and 15 years. You must realize that the Congressional Budget Office estimates are a fiction created by 10 years of taxing divided by six years of spending.
What has gotten into you? Where are your senses? What happened to your instincts?
Are you all to line up and drink the Kool-Aid, march off the cliff in lockstep? Charge into the cannon?
Charging an army, while
All the world wonder'd:
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.
Have you truly worked for this all your life: to sacrifice your political careers to pass the most unpopular piece of legislation I can ever remember passing Congress?
© Dick Morris & Eileen McGann