living large

Big Jim McDermott, Seattle's congressional rep, spoke to the Winter 2010 Community Meeting last night in West Seattle, at a place inexplicably called the Youngstown Cultural Center. It was, among other things, kind of a town hall meeting on health care, and was a very quiet affair, sparsely attended with only about 60 constituents there.

McDermott, one of the larger, more even-tempered, and honest people in Congress made a few predictions and expressed a few preferences. Among other things, McDermott, who is also a doctor, said he's confident a health care reform bill of some sort will pass, and that whatever form it takes won't be final. To illustrate what he's talking about, he cited the legislation establishing Medicare, first passed in 1965 and tinkered with ever year since.

He also said:

*He'd like to see the filibuster rule in the Senate abolished;

*He'd like to see the 1945 act establishing state insurance commissions repealed and a uniform set of regulatory guidelines administered nationally;

*He believes that legislation will be introduced in Congress within the next few months aimed at overturning the Supreme Court's recent ruling on corporate personhood.

McDermott established his bonafides in 2003, at the time the Bush administration shoehorned public opinion into approving of his invasion of Iraq. Rather than accept the administration's claims about Iraqi WMD at face value, McDermott went on a fact-finding trip to that country on the eve of the invasion, then came home and told his constituents and anybody else who wanted to listen that we weren't going to find any WMD there, that Saddam Hussein was not a threat to us, and that Bush and Cheney were blowing smoke up our butts. Needless to say, it took a lot of courage to defy the administration during a time they were working feverishly to build war lust and hysteria, a time when very few people were willing to stand up and be counted.

I'm not planning to vote for very many people next year, but I'm looking forward to voting for this guy. It's a rare pleasure to be able to vote enthusiastically for anyone.