ACT XXIV, SCENE 13. On the eve of the health care battle.
Enter the PRESIDENT.
PELOSI.
O that we now had here
But one one-hundred of those Blue Dogs
That face no re-election to-day!
OBAMA.
What's she that wishes so?
My handmaiden Pelosi? No, my fair lady;
If by ballot we are mark'd to die, we are enow
To do our party loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of ear-marks.
Who cares! I pray thee, wish not one vote more
Than is needed for simple majority.
By Alinsky, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed at my state dinners;
It yearns me not that Ashton and Demi my t-shirts wear;
Such outward things are cool but dwell not in my desires.
But if it be a sin to covet permanent state control,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, Madame Speaker, wish not a man from a swing district.
Screw that! I would not lose so great a bill
As one man more methinks would share from me
For the last hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Pelosi, through my hosts on CNN,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And a token DNC contribution put into his media fund;
But speak not again his traitorous name,
For his re-election is likewise screw'd.
We would not die in that man's company
That fears the Teabaggers to die with us.
This day is call'd the feast of Reconciliation.
He that votes aye this day, and comes home
To face the slings and arrows and pitchforks of the town-hall mob,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Reconciliation.
He shall have returned to DC on this day, and have the last laugh,
And a seven-figure sinecure on K Street.
In his stately paneled office with Potomac view
He will yearly on the vigil feast his lobbying-staff,
And say 'To-morrow is Health Care Day.'
A PowerPoint graph of his Gallups he will show,
And say 'These wounds I had on Reconciliation day.'
Electorates forget; soon all this shall be forgot,
Save that health care is each man's sacred entitlement,
Like college loans and high speed rail.
But he'll remember, with advantages,
What parliamentary feats he did that day to make it so.
Then shall our names, familiar in his mouth as talking points-
Harry of Searchlight, Rangel and Boxer,
Stark and Durbin, Grayson and Nelson-
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red.
This ratchet effect shall the consultant teach his interns;
And Reconciliation Day shall ne'er go by,
From this day until it all goes broke,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we ballsy few, we band of fuckers;
For he to-day that sheds his approval ratings with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er entangle in scandals so vile,
This day shall gentle his legacy;
And squishy Dems from swing states now in flight
Shall think themselves accurs'd they chickened out,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That voted with us upon Reconciliation day.
