Jujitsu

I'd like to see Joe Leiberman filibuster the public option.

No seriously, that's exactly what I want. I want EVERYBODY who is threatening a filibuster to actually line up and do it. Two reasons:

A. The public option is mighty popular. Only slightly more people dislike the option then like Congress. It takes a lot of courage to stand up to your constituents for several hours (maybe days!) and speak against it. On C-Span. And there is no better visual metaphor for obstructionism than a filibuster. And let's face it, after about ten minutes no one pays attention to the content of a filibuster, only the length.

B. As Media Matters has shown, when a person is forced to keep talking for hours and hours a day (like, say, talk radio hosts) the resulting word salad is a goldmine of out-of-context pull quotes. Who knows what crazy racist crap will slip out over the course of the debate?! The mind boggles. I bet at least one Republican congressman uses the word "uppity". Another one will point out that the country ran better when we were allowed to keep slaves. Michele Bachman will probably bring up the right to use incandescant bulbs again - we don't need a filibuster to make her talk crazy.

Anyway, a Republican filibuster isn't a threat - it's a promised gift. We should gracefully accept.