Figuring that freeing the slaves in Southern states would lock in resistance to a negotiated peace, the newspaper declaimed: “On who rests the responsibility and the shame: On the weak and incompetent ABRAHAM LINCOLN.”
From 150 years hence, it still smarts to reflect on how short-sighted our predecessors were. In the end, there’s little satisfaction in being on the wrong side of history.
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Which brings us to today, and the health-insurance reform bill that may – or may not – noodle its way through Congress in the next few days.It now surfaces that Otsego County’s two congressmen, both Democrats – Mike Arcuri in the 24th and Scott Murphy in the 20th – are among 40 House members targeted in a $30 million final push, spearheaded by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, to block the Obama Administration’s initiative.
In recent days, you may have noticed Arcuri getting hammered on the TV airwaves (or cable-waves) to oppose health-insurance reform.
(That the narrator focuses on a sliver of a statistic – breast-cancer survival rates in U.S. and France – suggests broader figures – for instance, that the U.S. ranks 37th in well-ness worldwide – would tend to support reform.)
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Arcuri would likewise be on the wrong side of history if he were to vote against health-insurance reform now. (The vote may be taken after this newspaper goes to press but before it arrived in your mailbox.)Let’s hope he won’t, and that goes double for Scott Murphy, Arcuri’s counterpart on the eastern side of Otsego County, who seems to be falling into the mode of his predecessor, Kristin Gillibrand.
As a congressman, she told her constituents one thing, then radically changed her message on being elevated to the U.S. Senate.
An imperfect bill can be improved later. No bill means the current health-care mess will be extended for another generation.
Arcuri and Murphy, in their hearts of heart, will find voting against health-insurance reform a lifelong regret.
Spare yourselves, fellas; get on the right side of history.
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