However, by and large SCD is correct. Any document beyond a certain size is either so cumbersome as to be functionally useless, loaded with 'booby traps', purposely designed to intimidate the public it's supposed to serve, hiding something dreadful, or all of the above.
Or, god forbid, actually trying to comprehensively and unambiguously cover an extremely complex situation.
The Public Good is best served by legislation that does not leave questions about what it means. Seriously, how is explicitly stating variables and closing loopholes not exactly what legislation should do?
Okay, I'll defer to the two lawyers in the thread, but...my layman brain says that a 5000-page document is going to have a hell of a lot of room for unintended consequences and nasty things lawmakers have thrown in that others might not notice. Why am I wrong?
I'm not apologizing for Joe being a big fucking baby, mind you, but his gambit is exactly the sort of thing that is supposed to happen when your majority is so shaky.
Pity you had to clarify this, because I had a very good rant lined up about how the Democrats have more seats in the Senate than any single party has had since 1976.
That said, even without Lieberman and Nelson, the Dems still have more seats than the Republicans had when they impeached a President for getting a blowjob, went to war with a nation that posed no threat to us, retroactively legalized warrantless surveillance of US citizens, put Alito on the Supreme Court (another filibuster which Lieberman helped break!), and deregulated us into a global financial crisis.
If the Democrats had been a bit more successful about convincing other Senators of the merits of this bill, they might not have had to endure these histrionics.
But it was pure party-line. Snowe's show notwithstanding, this bill was never going to get a single Republican vote. The Dems could introduce an Every Senate Republican Gets a Handjob bill and the Republicans would still try to filibuster it. (And the Democrats would still pass it. After adding some kind of rider to restrict abortion so that Nelson would vote for it.)
I'd be a little less pissed at the Dems for being unable to get Republicans to cross the aisle if the sons-of-bitches hadn't been tripping over each other to be bipartisan when Bush was driving us into a ditch.
(but then hey you know what's best for all those hayseeds out there and how dare they question your judgment on how the most personal and private aspects of their lives should be governed)
Hayseeds, or strawmen?
Support for the public option was at 60%. Support for the bill that passed is around 40. The Republicans are being utterly disingenuous about WHY public support is so low, but they're right: the majority of the country opposes this bill.
I read a good article in the Christian Science Monitor this morning about how the Dems have successfully pissed off people on both sides of the issue and produced an unpopular bill, but I can't find it right now and JESUS CHRIST HOW DID IT GET TO BE 10:40 AT NIGHT?
...well, aside from finding the link, I think I've said everything I wanted to. I'm going to bed.