I won't be posting too much this week, but this clip was so outrageous I had to try and write something. Joe Lieberman was on Andrea Mitchell and he announced like the pompous ass he is that Joe Lieberman categorically is opposed to the public option for health care.

And his major reason is because the votes aren't there. First of all, that's a crock. President Obama only needs 51 votes, so please, let's get rid of that talking point. It's only cowards like Holy Joe and the rest of the mealymouthed Dmes who are trying to sell us all down the river.

But the biggest hoax being foisted on Americans is the claim that a public option would destroy the health-care industry and we can't have that. If the health-care industry or HIC (Health Industrial Complex), as we call it, is so frakkin' wonderful, then what are they afraid of, and why is it a nightmare?

Also, Holy Joe like the Mad Twitterer (Grassley) say that there already is competition in the HIC because there are like three hundred and fifty companies already. Doesn't that tell these bozos that something is wrong if there are so many health-insurance providers and health care in America is this screwed up? If freaks like Blanche Lincoln, Mary Landrieu, and Joe Lieberman -- just to name a few -- were being honest, they would stop with the word games and do what's right for the American people.

Lieberman: Yea, I'm a against it because I think, two reasons. One is I'm fearful that at a time that we're spending too much here in Washington and going much too deeply in debt that a public option on health care no matter how you structure it will end up costing the taxpayers money. We don't need it. There's more than three hundred and fifty companies, maybe more than that selling health insurance, there's going to be a lot of competition for health insurance once universal health insurance comes and the third and probably the most important, the votes are not there for a public health plan, government run option and this can stand in the way of a historic achievement for President Obama, Congress and the American people which is really to establish a universal access to quality, affordable health care plan in America so I think as this goes on, there gotta be compromises on this if we want to do what I think the people want us to do.

This is one of the most infuriating statements regarding the public option I've ever heard. He now uses a new Luntz phrase: It's not Universal Health Care, it's Universal Access to Health Care. WTF is that? Are Senators by nature InF*&kingInSane? Do they all just come up with terminology that makes no sense about the policy being debated? We're not talking about access, we're talking about success.

First: How much money are the two wars costing us? Why isn't Congress yapping about the incredible amounts of money that is being sunk into the bottomless pit of Iraq and Afghanistan? No outrage from Joe on that. Isn't it costing the taxpayers a boatload of cash that Bush never even put into the budget? And for all we've spent on them, what do we have to show for it? With the public option, American families will have health care.

I heard McCain reiterating his point about having out-of-state insurance companies competing with each other. I immediately thought that if he got his wish, the idiot companies would make you go to Arizona for health care even if you live in Cleveland.

Anyway, Lieberman is a corporate mouthpiece for the HIC and he can rot as far as I'm concerned. He actually had the nerve to say that Obama is blowing the opportunity to reform health care because the President isn't bowing down to the hacks that cry "bipartisanship".

Health care is not a bipartisan issue. It's an American issue. The success or failure or reform legislation is not about Chuck Grassley and Kent Conrad splitting the difference. We should be done with that. It's about doing the right thing and making sure every American can obtain the health care they need.

Lieberman is either bought off or he doesn't have the chops to get his Republican and Democratic allies behind a public option that will be robust.