Early on in this whole HCR mess (seems like an eternity ago), we posted a number of pieces about how the stress and the strain on our politicians was leading to some clear public cracks and were offering a rare glimpse into the behind-the-scenes world of how the Wizard really controls Oz. For the better part of the summer and fall however, the politics have been visible. Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), Max Baucus (D-Mont.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and most conspicuously Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) have all had their cards open-faced for the whole poker-club to see. It is therefore a little challenging to detect something above this noise. So, just when we thought the fissures and the stress levels were clearly understood, our esteemed Majority Leader of the US Senate, Mr. Harry Reid (D-NV) raised the bar for everyone. Politico.com tells us the apparently Mr. Reid took to the floor of the US Senate, one of the most august and esteemed deliberative bodies the world has ever known. He took to that floor, a floor that had seen in its past divisive battles that were shameful to all of us (The caning of one Senator by another on the Senate Floor), and re-opened those wounds. He stood there and he proceeded to up the ante on this whole HCR debate. What did he say?

Mr. Reid, speaking on the floor of the Senate today, blasted GOP leaders who have urged Democrats opt for a slower, incremental approach to reform instead of the mega-bill the majority hopes to push through the Senate by Christmas. Reid started by mimicking Republicans whom he claims have said: “‘Slow down, stop everything, let’s start over.” “You think you’ve heard these same excuses before? You’re right,” he continued. “In this country there were those who dug in their heels and said, ‘Slow down, it’s too early. Let’s wait. Things aren’t bad enough’ — about slavery. When women wanted to vote [they said] ‘Slow down, there will be a better day to do that — the day isn’t quite right…’” He finished with: “When this body was on the verge of guaranteeing equal civil rights to everyone regardless of the color of their skin, some senators resorted to the same filibuster threats that we hear today.”

A sitting US Senator, and Majority Leader just compared a measured, reasoned opposition effort, which is of course the standard by which any deliberative body should strive towards, of being nothing more than a shill for obstructing progress– and then likened that shill to prior debates over slavery.

What the hell is he doing and what does Slavery have to do with HCR?

While there is no doubt that the US Governmental efforts to address Slavery from its inception in 1789, to outlawing the Slave Trade in 1807, to the Missouri Compromise of 1820, the Compromise of 1850, the Emancipation Proclamation, Jim Crow Laws, The Voting Rights Act and everything else can all be pretty clearly called “not ideal”. But, the entire point of birthing our country in the first place was not because everything worth debating was already agreed upon. No, the exact opposite. The point of the it all was that in order for a country of reasonable people who will one day disagree about things to have a chance at solving these problems, they need a system and a process by which those things can be fleshed out and decided. The Senate is a process– as much as a thing.

Now as an aside, people may argue that the length of time to go from the Constitution (1789) to our first Black President (2009) is embarassingly long (they do say this), but I challenge that statement with “Compared to what?”. By the time the only other great deliberative body in the world, the British Parliament got around to dealing with Slavery in the 1820’s, that country had been involved in the slave travesty for over 400 years. So, compared to what I ask? The entire point of the Senate and the House and the Supreme Court and all the rest of it was to give our growing, straining, pre-adolescent society the tools it would one day need to ask the hard questions and offer up the hard solutions about the things that would eventually divide us. When that process breaks down the results are not at all worth repeating. When in 1861 the process failed and the Senate could finally no longer find common ground on Slavery, half our country succeeded, formed their own country and then we proceeded to kill one another until over 800,000 men had died. The process is all that matters. Without respect for the process, then we are no better than all the failed experiments that came before us. Abortion, Prohibition, Womens’ Rights, Black Rights, HCR. Welcome to the great ongoing, experiment that is The United States of America.

So, knowing all of this (or maybe not) Harry Reid stands up and tells us all that the output and process for which the Senate was designed is not at all constructive. Its worse– it is the same obstruction used to keep men and woman in chains and savagely treated for generations. To Mr. Reid, it is clearly self-evident that Slavery was wrong and that everyone alive from Constitutional Convention to the 20th Century agreed on that fact. In his mind, the Senate was the only barrier to what was otherwise a harmonious view of black and white and property and humanity. No disagreement at all between the average man from Charleston, South Carolina and one from Boston, Massachusetts. In fact, Madison and Jefferson and Franklin and all the rest just sat around in Philadelphia writing the Constitution and they didn’t address Slavery then not because of an inability to find consensus, nope. They didn’t deal with the issue simply because of some filibustering obstructionists. All the people from all 13 states just knew what the right thing to do was, it was just those damn narrow-minded representatives to the Convention that didn’t get it. Never mind that most of them owned slaves or that the purpose of the Convention was to draft the document that would give us the process to address this issue. Nope. Those bad men were simply the forefathers of the current crop of obstructionist losers (Harry Reid calls them Republicans) who have in their pedigree all the people that set out with the goal of ruining all that could have been right with the world. In that same ludicrous fantasy world, Mr. Reid now imagines that there is no disagreement among people about HCR. Everyone is waiting with baited breath for the Senate to just step aside and let us at the new $1 Trillion dollar money pile from Uncle Sam. Given that Mr. Reid sees it this way, those pesky 40 Republicans and 4 stray Independents/Democrats are just being silly. Or worse– they are thwarting the will of the majority just like those horrid Conventioners and Senators did from 1789 to 1964. All those obstructionists.

Mr. Reid, with all due respect. Just shut the hell up and sit down. You’re ignorant and your lack of leadership ability has real consequences for my patients and my colleagues. Does it not even occur to you that the obstructionist Senators to which you refer were members of your own damn party? Democrats Mr. Reid were the ones who, time and time again killed Civil Rights Legislation. We point you to a great history of the period by Robert Caro. Even the esteemed elder Statesman of the Senate, Mr Robert Byrd, Democrat from WV opposed reform and famously called anyone who voted for it a “White Nigger”. You are way out of your league here. We need someone who can handle the stress and the strain. Man up— and get out of the way and let better Senators, and better human beings have a shot.