One of my favorite inside the beltway truisms is that "losers cry louder than winners cheer".  It is often held up as a reason why it is so hard to change the status quo, even when the net benefit of the change is dramatically positive.  The losers know what they're about to lose and are organized, while the winners may not even know what they're about to win and are disparate.   Needless to say, this creates huge political pressure to maintain the status quo that is felt by any elected official who wants to be elected again, no matter where their personal politics and policy agenda may lie.

In that context, this letter - and many others like it - are to be expected.  What's not to be expected is the level of political bravery that this Congress has shown for putting forth a bill that tries as hard as it does to overturn the status quo.  Pelosi, Dingell and the rest are saavy enough to know what well-organized crying looks like, and to expect it.  That they put this bill forth in spite of that is going to either prove to be great policy (if it passes, and history judges this as a great policy made in spite of political risk) or really bad politics (if it loses, and history judges this as naive idealism that miscalculated the politics at stake).  

I think this puts the onus on us.  We know they're losers, and we know they're organized, and we know they're going to cry.  Fine.  Cheer louder.  We're winners, dammit!  (cue the rousing music.)  Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?  Drown out the losers!  

Seriously - that's what it's going to take.  We need organized calls to every senator, every representative, every elected official we can get our paws on telling them how important this bill is to us, how visionary they are for getting it this far and how many winners there are out here.   All the better if they're republicans who can be peeled away from their party politics.  Or if they're from the southeast.  But call 'em, write 'em, email 'em and - in the words of my college fight song - "cheer boys, cheer".

Why did they bother wastin' the ink on that letter?  Surely they realize how hard it would be for the Congress to override the Supreme Court?  They simply couldn't do it, especially over an issue such as this which has at least some measure of support from the public and the states.

It won't happen.

An extreme position, if expressed in a moderate tone of voice, causes the MSM to recalculate the middle-point (the bubble on the level) that represents "balance."