The Hour of the Deer
By Michael Boyajian
Dusk for the city dweller is a time between night and day when existence takes on a mellow air free from the frustrations of the work day. It is a time for decompression before the beginning of evening. But it is a different feeling for the suburbanite for it is the hour of the deer. This is the time when deer come out to forage for food and frolic often leaping in front of your moving car causing total damage.
This hour exists as well in Washington D.C. and is no where more apparent than with the year long healthcare battle. Anything could and did happen with this bill in the effort to sidetrack the monumental legislation. In other words, there were plenty of surprises during the time it took to pass the bill.
First you had the rise of the teabaggers a rebel movement that deteriorated into an ugly mob yelling racial and anti-gay slurs at members of Congress with one even spitting on one Representative. Yet they were the darlings of the media. The media treated them like a groundswell when a few thousand teabaggers protested in D.C. Yet a few years earlier when the anti-Iraq war movement put a half million protesters in the streets of that city they were afforded no coverage.
Sarah Palin was allowed to create wild fires when she constantly made false statements about the bill saying things like there will be death panels as she winked impishly behind her weather beaten tan. The pundits went into a panic over her statements unseen since the financial collapse of 2008 under Bush Junior.
Republicans for their part cheered on the teabaggers while choosing not to contribute to the effort while voting against it in the end in a ham fisted attempt to grab power by undermining America’s first black president. It is a stretch to say that they were the agents of the insurance companies for the only power they reported to was their own thirst for power putting it before America.
Public opinion ran in favor of the bill then against and then started to tick in favor again on the eve of the Congressional vote.
Abortion opponents threatened to topple the whole house but through a last minute compromise with the White House the bill moved forward but not without the ugly mob rearing its head once again when a Republican member of Congress shouted out baby killer at a Democratic pro-lifer on the House floor.
The Catholic Bishops opposed the bill yet the Catholic nuns rose up and supported healthcare giving momentum to the effort at a key moment. The Massachusetts senate seat of Ted Kennedy was lost causing many to declare healthcare dead on arrival. Yet Speaker Pelosi and President Obama valiantly launched a counter offensive and pushed the bill through to approval late on Sunday March 21, 2010. It now awaits his signature.
The entire effort can only be described as a mouse giving birth to an elephant ending an effort that began with Theodore Roosevelt running through support by FDR, Truman, JFK, Nixon and Bill Clinton ending with the year long battle of a new president, Barack Obama.
The nation now hopes that this legislation will grow into something more comprehensive realizing that for today it is a beginning, a first step for America in joining the rest of the world. Who knows maybe now science will fall back into favor and we will build that atomic collider in Texas that was deep sixed by Ronald Reagan three decades ago. But for now we must enjoy what has been done while keeping in mind it is still the hour of the deer with hostile Republicans threatening legal action and repeal of the bill appearing once again as sore losers.
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