P O'Neill (whose blog you should read) has a post up about some of the spillover of the nutty US "health care debate" on the discourse in other lands. I'd quibble that the Canadian system comes in for more goofy bashing in the US than the NHS, though. Also, I'd say that while P is right to wonder about the wisdom of US wingnuts cluelessly alienating what would seem to be their "natural allies," i.e., their halfwit ideological counterparts in allied countries abroad, the question of why they'd risk this answers itself -- US conservatives are know-nothing insane. You'd think that, as P says, this would mean that "With enemies like these, maybe Barack Obama doesn't need friends," and fair enough, except that, of course, for reasons nobody can rationally explain, there exists an American legislative body known as the "US Senate."
Obama was not in '08, nor is now, my messiah, but, like, when it comes to health care, or any other domestic policy initiative, how do you solve a problem like Max Baucus?
If we don't get a good health care bill, yes, Obama deserves garbage-pelting. But let's be clear: we have a legislative system that is undemocratic, dysfunctional, and flat-out ridiculous. The only thing it will actually DO as far as spending goes is authorize stupid wars.
