A Democrat with a spine?!?

Most of what we've heard the past year has been all about compromising with Republicans, getting everyone on board, being bipartisan, etc., etc.,  etc.  I'd just about like to throw up every time I hear that.  Republicans were a massive failure during the years they were in power.  You know what you get when you compromise with failure?  Failure.  I've been waiting - while acknowledging that the waiting was pretty much in vain - for a Democrat with a spine to show up.  And shockingly... one did!!!

Representative Alan Grayson from Florida finally stood up and said things that needed to be said.  He said that the Republican heath care plan is: Don't get sick.  And if you do get sick, die quickly.  Here's the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-usmvYOPfco

I'll expand on that.  The first part: don't get sick.  That's exactly what Republicans and their insurance masters want you to do.  Keep paying premiums month after month, year after year, and don't ask your insurance company to pay for anything.  Don't cut into their profits!  But let's say you do get sick, you awful person, and ask the insurance company to actually do what they're supposed to do: pay for it.  Here comes the second part.  The longer you're sick, the worse the cost is for the insurance companies.  So please, have the courtesy to die quickly.  Also - if you do die quickly, the insurance company can quickly move to deny payment for all kinds of things in the hopes that a grief-stricken family will miss a lot of their shenanigans and pony up the dough.  So there it is:  Don't get sick.  If you do, die quickly.  The implication, of course, is that the Republicans don't care.  You might say they lack empathy. 

So the Republicans lost their minds over this.  How long has it been since the Sotomayor hearings where the Republicans condemned empathy?  Can't have empathy in a Supreme Court justice!  Empathy is bad!  Now when they're accused - rightfully - of lacking it for the American people, they are going crazy, calling it the worst-ever insult ever propagated on the House floor, etc., etc.  Ever notice how Republican politicians throw out wild allegations and insults - things like how President Obama wants to kill your grandmother with death panels - but when someone pounds a little sand in their face, they are absolutely aghast at how low the dialogue in Washington has sunk?  Well, I have two words for them:  screw and you. 

Rep. Grayson did even better:  when Republicans demanded an apology, he got on the House floor and essentially gave them those two words and more:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dn9361OuMQA

And then Rep. Grayson absolutely made my day with this one.  He got onto CNN's Situation Room and didn't back down one inch.  He absolutely owned the CNN panel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTrDF0Gszck

You know what was going on:  CNN's talking heads (after Wulf Blitzer's EPIC FAIL on Jeopardy, I refuse to ever call him a journalist because journalists actually know things) were siding with the Republicans.  Glorida Allred indignantly asked how this raises the dialogue.  What I'd like to know is where the hell Allred has been the past, oh, 30 years?  This serves as an excellent highlight for the double standard in politics:  Republican politicians can say completely crazy stuff and be partisan radicals, because, well, that's just what Republicans do.  Democrats are expected to raise the dialogue, etc., etc.  When they call out Republicans, the media is all aghast and demands higher standards.

Anyhow, Rep. Grayson administered a beautiful beatdown to the lot of them.  I loved it, and this guy is my new political hero.  He's a newly elected congressman and he's apparently decided he's had enough of the crap that's going on in D.C. and he's going to call things like they are.  A side note that will come back to the main point:  an old childhood friend ran for office this past year and the people in his district were too stupid to elect him.  If they had, they would have gotten representation just like this.  Rep. Grayson is being the kind of representative - not politician, representative - that I think my friend would have been.  A straight shooter who knows the truth, isn't afraid to speak it, can defend himself very ably, and kick some Republican ass when he needs to.  I don't know if Rep. Grayson will be this way long term.   I know my friend would have been.  Thank goodness there was a district intelligent enough to send a representative like this to Congress.  A Democrat with a spine.