I didn’t watch Obama’s speech last night, but by all accounts it was a really good speech, which is great as far as it goes, but speechifying doesn’t go far enough. Obama needs to be able to twist arms in Congress, and I don’t think he’s got it in him to actually put up a fight. Could be I’m wrong. I hope so. One thing that ought to motivate him to fight is the behavior of the Republicans – especially that consummate asshole Joe (not the good one) Wilson. These creatures have no shame, but I reckon their antics play well with the mouth breathers they represent. Can you imagine what Fux and the other traditional media sources would have done with the story of a Democrat yelling out “YOU LIE!” when Bush spoke about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? Or if they’d held up insulting or inflammatory signs? Christ, you’d been hearing about this 24/7 until the 2012 election. Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Bill O’Reilly would be whipping up murderous outrage from their mindless followers, and Karl Rove would be outing Wilson’s wife as a CIA agent or something.

So, you’d think it would be pretty clear to Obama and the non-DINO Democrats that Republicans have no place at the table for health care reform. They can sit at the kids’ table in the other room and have a food fight or something, but the grownups will have to do the big work by themselves. And it would be nice if Obama could do more than give a good speech. I hate to beat a dead horse here, but I feel compelled to repeat that the friggin’ Democrats have the House, the Senate, the Presidency, and Public Opinion on their side. I mean, as Maron might say, WTF! If they can’t get it done with all of that, how can they ever get anything done. Screw the speeches, I want action.

I have to laugh, reading some of the commentary of the speech, lauding Obama’s “comeback,” and his playing “rope a dope.” Yeah, whatever. How many of the minority of people who think there’s gonna be death panels actually watched the speech (never mind were moved enough by it to see the error of their ways)? The only thing that’d change their minds would be if Obama woke up white this morning (but he’d still be married to one of “them,” so I guess the whole damn family needs a Michael Jackson bleach job – especially that voodoo-practicing grandmother). And since when do politicians give a flyin’ frack about “public” opinion anyway? If they did, reform would have been done already (and we’d be out of both Iraq and Afghanistan).

This speech will be forgotten by the end of the week (except how brave Joe Wilson gave that colored fella hell). If Obama really wants reform, he’s gonna have to go kick some ass in Congress. How? I dunno. Maybe threaten to take Max Baucus’ daughter out on a date or something.

Granted, Republicans and DINOs have money and the traditional media on their side (or, rather, the corporate interests that control the media and have all the money have Republicans in their pocket), but, hey, nobody said it was gonna be easy.

What they really need is a big bag of weed.