It appears more and more that if the Congress passes something lableled "healthcare reform" this year it will be the legislative equivalent of the infamous fat substitute Olestra.  Olestra, you may recall, was a product that provided all the fat taste in products with no calories but because it was a material that could not be digested had one very memorable downside: "anal leakage."  Jay Leno had a great time with that one and few of us who heard of this rotten product ever forgot it.  Olestra did more harm than good and if our Congress passes a lame, half assed, public option in name only or a "trigger" it will have the very same appeal and popularity of Olestra.

First they deep six Medicare for All which makes sense on every count and is what our nation needs.  Then they deep six the public option that was supposedly the essential element in "keeping the insurance companies honest".  Now they are discussing a "trigger" that is not only a bullshit idea but one that is clearly designed to fail.  Regardless, what we'll get in the end is an insurance subsidy bill that will cost too much and for which we will get too little in return, while the insurance companies will grow even more obscenely rich than they already are because they will now be allowed to feed directly from the public trough.  The message Obama and the Democrats have sent to the parasites in the drug and insurance industries is clear: we are weak and do not have the courage to fight for what we claim are our convictions.

With any luck, the progressives will kill any bill that doesn't include a public option strong enough to actually accomplish the goal of reform.  Anything less and it will deserve to die on the floors of Congress which will be a gift to Democrats because despite the fact that losing this issue demonstrates their ineptitude and lack of resolve on healthcare, winning a bill that only enriches the bad guys and makes matters worse is is a much less appealing alternative.  But of course, that's not the tune the corporate centrist Democrats are singing now is it?  They say that what is important is to pass "a" bill, any bill.  Bullshit is the only thing I can think of to say to that.

Under the leadership of the corporate centrist Democrats, the average American has gained absolutely zero the past 40 years even when we controlled the legislative and executive branches of the government.  If 40 years of defeat being snatched from the jaws of victory isn't enough to figure out these guys are rotten leaders who are full of it then nothing will. 

So is there a lesson in all of this?  Is there any good that can be taken away from this shameful, humiliating display the Democrats of DC have put on for all the world to see?  I think there is.

The lesson is that we who comprise the Democratic wing of the Democratic party must resolve never again to support a corporate centrist Democrat even if that candidate is marginally better than a Republican.  You don't have to support the Republican but you can support primary challengers to the Democrats who deserve it and you can simply refuse to give them your vote.   A bad Republican is less of a problem than a rotten Democrat as the healthcare debacle makes clear.  We have to send a message in 2010 that is loud and clear that even a Blue Dog can understand which is: we will no longer vote for Democrats who vote like Republicans either for Congress of for President.  It doesn't work for us politically and it is ruining our country.  We need to return the power of our government to the people and put that power to use on behalf of the common people and their interests instead of the special interests who control our government and who corrupt our elected officials with their money, lobbyists and power.

Never again should Democratic voters give the beneift of the doubt to a waffling centrist whose real aim is to see how much money he or she can squeeze out of the special interests for their next reelection instead of seeing what they can do to advance the long neglected interests of the average American.  No more Lieberman's. No more Nelson's or Baucus'.  No more Landrieu's and no more Lincoln's.  That is the only avenue I see that will get the attention of those chickenhearts we elected to office in DC.