In the rich history of legislative farce, few scenarios are as delightful as this one: Roland Burris kills health care reform.
Burris
says he’s not going to vote for any bill that doesn’t include a public option. Period. The end. No pussy-foot half-measures, like Olympia Snowe’s “triggered” option, no “non-profit co-ops.” Just the real one.
And who the hell is going to talk him out of it? Democrats aren’t about to offer him any kind of political support. Friending him on Facebook would be too close a political connection for them.
They can’t threaten him, either; what are they gonna do,
make him stand out in the rain again? Roland Burris wouldn’t care. Roland Burris is immune to humiliation.
See, for Burris, there’s no such thing as bad publicity. Burris is an egomaniac of epic proportions. The guy built himself a gigantic mausoleum
emblazoned with the phrase “Trail Blazer,” and he’s been carving his accomplishments in it ever since. He named his children “Roland II” and “Rolanda.” He
claims to be divinely inspired and once called himself a “magic man.”
You think he wouldn’t love the idea of being the lone holdout for health care? Of making Harry Reid grovel at his feet and maybe sit next to him at the lunch table? Of chiseling “Savior of Public Health Care” on that tombstone? He’d be a pig in poop.
And you know what? Some sick part of me hopes that Harry Reid really does charge blindly ahead with his watered-down compromise bill and gets blindsided by a Burris no-vote that—is it too much to dream?—would have been his 60th.
Sure it might kill health care reform. But if the American people see the entire legislative process held up for Roland freaking Burris, they’d finally get just how dysfunctional the Senate is. The Constitution doesn’t say anything about filibusters or supermajorities. They’re just the product of traditions and rules and loopholes designed to maximize the power of each and every senator—even a quack who was appointed by a scandal-plagued governor and talks about himself in the third person.
It probably won’t happen. But if it does, I hope Reid makes the naysayers actually filibuster, not just threaten to filibuster. Clear the schedule, give ‘em the floor on national television. Maybe Burris himself would even get in on the action. Can you imagine hour upon hour of pontification from the Magic Man? We’d need to revive Jon Stewart with smelling salts.
Kevin Spak is a writer for Newser.
