The Last Of The Great Last Stands

A group of Senate Republicans are taking what they say is one last final stand against Obamacare. But does this last stand necessarily mean there can't be other last stands?

Ted Cruz and his band of merry Senators are out to defund Obamacare because it's like, the worst law ever. And this isn't just any old attempt to take out the socialists by the knees.

No, no, no.

This is the "last chance" to save America, according to our new Texan pal Senator Cruz.

But is this the actual last chance or just another run of the mill last chance?

I only ask because if you look back at Sen. Cruz's bushwhacking, Tea Party forerunners, history has offered what appears to be many a last chance to kill Obamacare.

TED CRUZ

"This is our last chance to take out Obamacare"

“The Obama administration’s plan is very simple. It is to get as many Americans as they can addicted to the subsidies, addicted to the sugar, because they know that in modern times, no major entitlement, once it was implemented, has ever been unwound.”

Referring to Obamacare as sugar? Americans love sugar. Better metaphors, Cruz.

But now let’s go back to that first last chance—the pesky old 2012 presidential election.

RON JOHNSON

Ron Johnson became the Junior Senator from Wisconsin by campaigning on a platform of repealing of the Affordable Care Act and, well, not much else. Come 2012, he believed the stakes couldn't get any higher.

"This is really our last chance of stopping this and I think we really need to run the table, or this health care law, I fear, will be implemented." (Sept. 2012)

But not so fast. He had yet meet new chum Ted Cruz.

This week, Johnson became one of the 11 senators to sign Cruz’s letter threatening a government shutdown were Obamacare to receive funding in the next appropriations bill.

I guess he just didn’t know that he’d get another last chance. It’s okay, Ron. We’ve all been there.

PHIL GINGREY

You remember Phil? He's that dude who got up on the House floor and said that girls and boys should be taught from a young age what it means to be a girl or a boy so that they don't get, you know, confused.

Well, he's also got some last chance commentary for you.

"That's the last train that's leaving the station in regard to stopping this. This train is leaving the station, and there's not going to be another opportunity. If Barack Obama is reelected to a second term, and we don't replace him with the 45th president, then this law sinks in, it gets roots, and it ain't going away." (Aug. 2012)

No, that is not John Cleese.

This is John Cleese.

MICHELE BACHMANN

Come on, you knew this was coming. No Murderer's Row of right-wing loonies is complete without a nod toward Queen Crazy.

"I also underscore that we will only have one shot in 2012 to get this job done, because after that, Obamacare will have metastasized into state and local government such that we'll likely never get rid of it." (Nov. 2011)

Metastasize! It's like Obamacare will need it's own Obamacare--but then how many Obamacare's will that need?

If only these alarmists would just read the god damned, unholy liberal media. Sarah Kliff at the Washington Post published a whole playbook on how Republicans could neuter Obamacare.