If you saw Glenn Greenwald’s depressingly accurate take on how the Democratic party leadership plays Three-card Monte with the progressive base, you might have been left with an unsatisfying sense of validation. You knew that there was something oddly convenient about the constantly shifting goalposts that have made an emotional rollercoaster of this legislative process. And yet, on the whole, you gave the Dems the benefit of the doubt, perhaps reasoning that passing a hugely popular initiative like the public option is a no-brainer.
Then, as if to provide a real-time illustration of the deceitful game that Glenzilla described, Nancy Pelosi, Rotating Villain of the Day, came along to regretfully announce that the goal posts had moved once again. Some even seemed to cheer her on for standing up for the House as an institution; never mind that she did so to the detriment of the American people.
If you’re like me, you concluded that the leaders of your party have pulled off the perfect crime: they loved the public option to death And they managed to do it href=http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/02/25/breaking-pelosi-reps-the-public-option-obama-adm
its-he-abandoned-it/>without leaving any fingerprints.
Thankfully, Act Blue has devised a way to make them accountable. They produced this simple and compelling ad, to air in D.C. and in her district, to put the lie to the group dissembling and to dry up all those crocodile tears over what might (at least mathematically) be the greatly exaggerated death of the public option. At best, it can help to get the public option enacted into law. At worst, it will put politicians, and hopefully a good chunk of Democrats and independents on notice: the jig is up. We know that they are able but unwilling to do our bidding. It may be a small step, but it’s an important first step towards throwing the bastards out, and building a better country (and party!) in the process.
Please help them to get this on the air.