William Safire used to channel Yuri Andropov when the KGB-big-turned-number-one- communist was alive and Richard Nixon was gone to push his New York Times’ column to different levels of empathy.
Similarly, I have been wondering what is going on inside the very big brain of the very hard-left Rep. Henry Waxman, D-CA. With apologies to Safire, here’s what I think Henry is thinking as this critical week in Congress opens and he resumes negotiations on his proposals to radically overhaul the American medical system with conservative “Blue Dog” Democrats:
Thirty-five years I have waited for this moment. Thirty-five years of climbing the ladder. Thirty-five years that included Reagan and two Bushes! Well, the first Bush wasn’t so bad, but there were times in the first six years of W, I almost threw it in.
Now it is this close. This close. Nancy does whatever Barney and I want. Steny knows we are headed for the cliff, but he can’t stop us. And if we push single-payer through and the Senate gives us any version of it and cap-and-trade –anything, anything at all– we have won.
We get to the conference, and it is over. So we’ll take a thumping in ’10. Won’t matter. The laws will be in the books and the agencies will take over from there. My work will be done, and it will never be undone. The agencies get the broad strokes and fill in the blanks. Lots and lots of blanks.
Single-payer and a carbon tax – in one year! I knew it could be done, which is why I had to throw old John under the bus. Poor Dingell never saw it coming, but he wouldn’t have made it happen. It had to be done. Who could have seen this election night in ’04. Things change quickly and it can happen to us. John didn’t get that. He had to go.
I was here in ’77 and saw Carter and Tip blow it.
I was here in ’93 and saw Tom Foley and the Clintons blow it.
These sorts of moments come and are gone. These sorts of majorities don’t last. When the door opens, you have to run through it. Sprint through it! Make every deal, agree to anything, do anything to get the bill into law.
So I drop a 300 page amendment on the morning of the cap-and-trade vote and Boehner almost strokes out. Heh. Who cares? It passed. I just need to get to the conference. They think Max Baucus or Dorgan or any of those Senate high hats can out negotiate me? We just have to get to conference.
If single payer gets through, they’ll have to pass the carbon tax. No other way to pay for it. Obama knows this. I know this. Rahm knows this. Does Nancy? Does Nancy know anything? Barney knows. Our deal is good. He gets the second act. Barney and Henry –the two unlikeliest “most powerful men in the United States after the president,” and our legacies will be longer.
But we are not there yet. Deep breaths and calm down. So close, and I have to deal with this yokel from Arkansas and this turnip from Louisiana. Why do those states even get to vote? Mike Ross and Charlie Melancon. I hope they didn’t hear me call them evidence for creationism when they stormed out.
Blue dogs? Dead dogs when this is over. Another chapter for the memoir: “Sucker punching the suckers from the South.” We really ought to have a literacy test for the House. But stay calm now. Stay focused. Thirty-five years to get to this precise moment –at the center of the rewriting of the American Constitution through the administrative state.
If I just trick one more bunch of yokels one more time. One more time. OK, smile, and pretend to care what Mike is saying….
Examiner columnist Hugh Hewitt is a law professor at Chapman University Law School and a nationally syndicated radio talk show host who blogs daily at HughHewitt.com.
