It's (Nearly) Over

I watched some of the tortuous proceedings in the House last night, including John Boehner's speech (video and transcript here - it's good), 25 seconds of Madame Speaker's follow-up rant (wtf IS it with that woman's "heh-heh-heh" voice tic, anyway?  Is that Beavis or Butthead she's channeling?), and the floor votes on the Senate Bill (219-212) and the reconciliation package.  I also caught some of the commentary from Charles Krauthammer... other than that I had the teevee pretty much on mute after the premiere of the Discovery Channel's "Life" series ended (priorities, yanno?) and I switched channels to watch the the House's kabuki play on steroids.  Apropos of nothing... Geraldo Rivera is still an idiot.  Fox News scrapes the bottom of the host barrel on late-night Sundays... but Rivera is preferable to that asshat Blitzer or whichever twit sits in MS-NBC's anchor chair.  Barely.

So... it's nearly over.  The president still needs to sign the bill into law and the Republicans will fight their rear-guard action in the Senate.  That said, The Fat Lady sang her aria and she's left the building.  All that remains is to suck it up and wait for the myriad unintended consequences to begin rearing their ugly little heads.  And watch the lawsuits being filed.  All that aside, it looks like I picked a bad week to find a doctor who'll take Medicare.  I suppose that's what I get for my chronic procrastination.  I wonder if there's a drug for this condition?  And will the gub'mint authorize it, if it does exist?  So many questions... so few answers.

Finally... why does Benjamin Franklin's famous "A republic, Madam... if you can keep it" quote keep ringing in my ears?  That's purely a rhetorical question, of course.  We both know the answer, Gentle Reader.