Asides, ripostes and humorous comments often tell you more about the direction of someone’s thoughts than their more considered pronouncements. That’s why I was intrigued by the intentionally comical secret list of right-to-sue provisions Marshall Wittman ‘found’ hidden away in the hastily slapped together bill-killing Bush-Norwood Patients’ Bill of Rights.
Here are faux right-to-sue provisions numbers 2,3,4,5 and 10:
2. Certification by the Florida Secretary of State.
3. Exhaustive personal investigation by an Independent Counsel.
4. A peer review by Senior Advisor to the President, Karl Rove.
5. A large certified check made payable to the Katherine Harris for Congress Committee.
10. Unanimous concurrence of the United States Supreme Court.
Florida, the OIC, Katherine Harris, oblique reference to the Supreme Court’s Bush v. Gore decision? Aren’t these Dem Talking Points? Our mantra of grievances? The tell-tale signs of the corruption of contemporary Conservatism?
What gives? Is there something you want to tell us, Marshall?
Wittman is certainly no liberal Democrat. Not any kind of Democrat really, at least not yet. But there are a number of us here on the other side of the aisle who believe in a progressive nationalism which isn’t that far removed from what Wittman calls National Greatness Conservatism. And the valence of this sort of McCainite reformism seems to inevitably trend away from traditional Conservatism and the Republican party — except on defense policy (which actually ain’t such a bad thing.)
I’m no fan of the insistent sinophobia and the vestigial attachment to National Missile Defense. But hey, a few years back he was working for the Heritage Foundation and even the Christian Coalition. So give ’em time, give ’em time.
Why hold back, Marshall? Take the plunge. The water feels just fine.
