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ACT XXIV, SCENE 13. On the eve of the health care battle.
A tip of the biretta o{]:¬) to American Catholic who got this in turn from IowaHawk.
Enjoy!
And remember! Talk Like Shakespeare Day is coming up!
(with apologies to the Bard)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 ******s;
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.
Hmmm…. I had forgotten that under that Talk Like Shakespeare entry I had written a parody of Shakespeare on the ICEL, Bp. Trautman, and "ineffable" issue.
Memories!
Well done Sir! I about laughed myself sick reading that. Well done.
Comment by steve14530 — 9 March 2010 @ 1:41 pmACT XXIV, SCENE 13
Ain’t it the truth!
Comment by TomB — 9 March 2010 @ 1:46 pmProclaimed by a true actor ala Olivier. Then remove the makeup and costume and return to what he really is: a Chicago pol.
Comment by Breck — 9 March 2010 @ 2:06 pmI didn’t understand a lot of it but I still thought it was funny!
Comment by Elly — 9 March 2010 @ 2:13 pm..And hold their manhoods cheap..and many willing to sell their souls, I’m afraid.
Great work by the author. But, it’s so true that I have a hard time seeing the humor.
True tragedy.
Comment by wanda — 9 March 2010 @ 3:16 pmIowahawk is da man! But how would it sound read over a background of Non nobis, Domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo da gloriam.? We’ll have to wait until the great denouement of Reconciliation Day.* It’s pins and needles time until then.
(* actually, the vote in the House.)
Comment by trespinos — 9 March 2010 @ 3:45 pmOh, that these “pointy heads” could actually speak in such grandeur;
Comment by nazareth priest — 9 March 2010 @ 4:08 pmAlas, it is to be naught.
We must weep with the droppings they provide;
And pray God, they go away…away…away!
Mark Anthony Obama
Easter Monday 2010
Friends, Chicagoans, flaming liberals, lend me your ears;
Comment by Eric — 9 March 2010 @ 4:09 pmI come to bury Health Care, not to praise him;
The evil that men do lives after them,
The good is oft interréd with their bones,
So let it be with Health Care…. The noble Boehner
Hath told you Health Care was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Health Care answered it….
Here, under leave of Boehner and the rest,
(For Boehner is an honourable man;
So are they all; all honourable men)
Come I to speak in Health Care’s funeral….
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Boehner says he was ambitious;
And Boehner is an honourable man….
He would hath brought many people to the emergency room,
Whose expenses would the general coffers empty:
Did this in Health Care seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Health Care hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Boehner says he was ambitious;
And Boehner is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the congressional floor
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice fail to pass: was this ambition?
Yet Boehner says he was ambitious;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Boehner spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then to mourn for him?
O judgement! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason…. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Health Care,
And I must pause till it come back to me.
It’s funny—but we need to pray. It looks like Stupak and some others are about to cave. It also doesn’t help when the U S Bishops say that if the abortion issue is resolved the health care bill should be passed. Abortion is not the only thing wrong and immoral with the bill(s). When will the Bishops get off their extremely naive and misplaced social justice mantra?
Comment by EXCHIEF — 9 March 2010 @ 4:34 pmEric: Did you just compose this? Right now? Excellent!!
Comment by nazareth priest — 9 March 2010 @ 4:46 pmVery funny. My only concern is the fact that, upon delivering the actual St. Crispin’s Day speech back in 1415, Harry went on to beat the crud out of his adversaries (the French, that day).
Here’s hoping “Barry the King” isn’t able to pull this one off. Perhaps a quick prayer for the intercession of St. Joan of Arc? :)
Comment by ryder — 9 March 2010 @ 5:01 pmFWIW, I called Congressman Stupak’s office earlier today, and said (truthfully :) that I voted for him when I lived in his district, then asked why it was all over the internet that he’d “caved”. I added that I still have family in his district, and that I’d had to leave for work reasons, but still follow him on line.
His staff could not figure out where the barrage of negative publicity has come from almost overnight, and said he has NOT changed his position at all. Makes you wonder if the other side decided to destroy his reputation since they failed to bribe him. Maybe I’m naive, but I believed her.
Look at the dates on things like the Cheboygan video being circulated as “proof” that he is secretly pro-Obambacare. It is from October 2009 – way before he voted against the abortion provisions in the House bill.
Will pray to St Michael for him because he is up against pure evil.
Comment by isabella — 9 March 2010 @ 8:30 pmHey, stop making Obama sound like King Henry V! It’s making me like him against my will!
Comment by Rachel — 9 March 2010 @ 9:58 pm“he has NOT changed his position at all.”
Isabella—Just today, Stupak granted an interview to The Weekly Standard, in which he said why would he give in now after all the crap he’s been through? He would surely have nothing to gain. If Obama or Emanuel or whomever decides to punish him or his district in some fashion, it’s probably too late for him to stop it.
“I still have family in his district, and that I’d had to leave for work reasons.”
Then you must be familiar with Yoopers—residents of the U.P. or Upper Peninsula, from whence Stupak hails. I understand they are very tough people with a lot of endurance and little tolerance for nonsense. Hopefully Stupak will do them proud.
Comment by bookworm — 9 March 2010 @ 11:55 pmOh Eric!
Comment by JARay — 10 March 2010 @ 7:31 amBrilliant forsooth.
I pray thee, cease not thine inspirited postings.
Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps on this time from day to day.
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death.
Sithee! Not all fools have yet shuffled off their mortal coils. And we, who yet hope in the glorious coming of our Saviour, languish in this vale of tears.
JARay
Just one set of *******s from Iowahawk is almost unheard of.
Shakespeare is good for raising the moral tone, I suppose.
And I am VERY glad to hear that Stupak appears to be holding the line. So many rumors have started out of apparently nothing at all, that I fear they are being planted by the administration.
Comment by An American Mother — 10 March 2010 @ 8:31 amEric, Health Care in its coffin is a consummation devoutly to be wished.
Comment by An American Mother — 10 March 2010 @ 8:32 am“My heart is in the coffin there with Health Care”
OBAMA.
Wherefore was that cry?
EMANUEL.
Health Care, my Lord, is dead.
OBAMA.
Comment by Ernesto Gonzalez — 10 March 2010 @ 9:01 amIt should have died hereafter;
The time for spin would have been post election.
Republicans, and Republicans, and Republicans,
Creep in their petty pace from state to state,
Till the last second of the open polls,
And all my speeches have lighted none but
yellow dogs. Out, Out brief majority!
Politics is but a poor speaker
that hams and haws and umms through his address
Until the prompter spurs his words. It is
The Ouroboros, circling endlessly,
Progressing nowhere.
Sorry to sound like a philistine here, but to which play is this parody alluding, and what is the significance of 24/13?
Michael Val
Comment by mvhcpa — 10 March 2010 @ 11:12 am(who has acted in a few Shakespeare plays, namely Twelfth Night and Taming of the Shrew)
myhcpa:
The main entry is a parody of Henry’s St. Crispin’s Day Speech, Henry V IV.iii (with a few bits from Hamlet and others thrown in).
Eric’s comment is a parody of Antony’s speech to the people of Rome in Julius Ceaser III.ii.
As for 24/13, I am not sure, but I think it refers to how long the debate over this bill has continued.
Comment by Ernesto Gonzalez — 10 March 2010 @ 11:35 amI hope and pray that this is really the FINAL eve of the FINAL battle on this bill. I am surprised that Obie and Co didn’t just lie low for a while to give us a false sense of security and then sneak it in early summer. His stupidity is, I pray, our victory.
Comment by Peggy R — 10 March 2010 @ 1:04 pmbookworm,
Yes I was a Yooper :) And I will support, pray for, and believe Mr.Stupak over Oboomba any day of the week. One of my present state senator’s staffers told me there was no funding for abortion in the Senate bill back in December, so I read it to her from the Library of Congress site. Her response – to lecture me for being stupid.
Plus Congressman Stupak’s staffer thanked me when I thanked her and said that I hoped God would bless them, and that a lot of people are depending on them. Wish I’d never had to leave “da UP”, so I could do more to support him. I just hope he can keep his coalition together.
He may have been wishy-washy last year, but I believe he has made up his mind now and is sticking to it. So the forces of evil and Pelosi, etc. are after him and he needs prayer, not snarkiness about holding out for a bigger bribe like Nelson did. He isn’t like that, unless he has really, really changed.
Oh – nice melange of Shakespeare’s speeches :)
Comment by isabella — 11 March 2010 @ 2:21 am