American Patrol

A Keen Grasp of the Obvious Award, with special merit and high distinction, to freshman US Representative Alan Grayson (D-FL), for his remarks on the House floor Tuesday night laying out what he saw as the Republican plan for health reform:

"It's a very simple plan. Here it is, the Republicans' healthcare plan for America: Don't get sick .... Republicans have a backup plan in case you do get sick... if you get sick, America, the Republican healthcare plan is this: Die quickly. That's right, the Republicans want you to die quickly if you get sick."

His remarks unleashed a predictable firestorm of cheap offense-taking by both Republicans and the media. Grayson the next day responded to the Republican's inevitable request for a public apology by issuing one-- to the 45,000 Americans that a recently released Harvard Medical School study estimates die from lack of health insurance every year and their loved ones. Takers of cheap offense were, by implication, invited to go fry ice.

While even such usually reliable commentators as Rachel Maddow have contributed to the general media outcry over Congressman Grayson's comments, which at its mildest faults him for his characterization of the mass deaths from lack of health insurance as a "holocaust," Congressman Grayson's comments are, taken at face value, entirely defensible. "Holocaust," for example, is a Latin-derived word whose common usage, according to Webster's, refers to "a great or total destruction of life," and further characterizes its usage in reference to the Nazi pogroms (which is usually capitalized and accompanied by the definite article "the") as "idiomatic," meaning Grayson's usage was entirely justifiable and any offense taken at it was very cheap indeed. And while Grayson's were, as Maddow pointed out, comparable to floor statements by several Republican Representatives that equated the Democratic health care reform effort to a mass death threat, they were not in any sense equivalent. The Republican statements were made in complete contradiction to the facts of any plan the Democrats had offered. On the other hand, the Republicans, apart from the amendments they have offered to bills they have explicitly stated they will not vote for, have offered no plan at all. Filling in the blanks and lying are two different things.

While Grayson's initial statement made an important point, the reaction to it, and his reaction to that reaction, made an even more important one. While Republicans parse people’s sentences and loudly proclaim their bruised sensitivities, and Democrats stand on decorum and make a great show of being above the fray, tens of thousands of people are dying because the leadership of the richest country on the planet cannot muster the political will to see that their basic medical needs are met. In refusing to play either side's game, Congressman Grayson represented a majority of Americans who care less about watching their leaders play political patty-cake than they do about getting pressing issues resolved. In doing so, he may be one of the few true Representatives in the House-- I hope some of his colleagues will follow his example. Kudos to him. Here’s wishing him a long and fruitful career, both in politics and in satire.