Lessons from the House health care vote

[Tex]

The House passed their health care bill late Saturday night, 220-215, with one Republican defector. The bill was unveiled about a week ago, and was nearly 2000 pages long. If your rep voted yes, give him or her a ring and ask if he or she read it.

In any case, we learn at least two things by this vote:

1. The leftists in control of gov't are more liberal than the majority of the country who gave them that control. Otherwise, these votes (like the 219-212 Cap-and-Trade vote) would not have such razor-thin margins.

2. As a result, liberals are afraid to be who they are. Rumor has it that Pelosi had more than 220 votes for this health care bill, but some of them were terrified to face their constituents were they to vote yes. After securing just enough votes to pass it, some were allowed to vote against to save their hides back home.

Honorable mention: Pelosi, who was one of the loudest whiners about the so-called "unfair" tactics of Tom Delay and the Republicans in their heyday, has hypocritically been one of the most iron-fisted Speakers the House has ever seen. But this really isn't a lesson learned, since no one believed her sincerity when she claimed to want bipartisan cooperation, anyway.