There really isn’t all that much to say about the version of health care “reform” passed earlier this week by the United States Senate, except to point out that, if enacted in its current form, this legislation will send bad policy colliding against bad politics—a cluster fuck of historic proportions even by the standards of your typical Democratic miscalculation. At best, the Senate bill could take so long to produce any discernible positive results that Democrats will be blamed, fairly or not, for failing to deliver reform. At worst, the Senate bill could obligate millions to purchase an insurance plan they cannot afford to purchase, let alone to use. Which may explain why one saavy commentator recently compared the leadership style of President Barack Obama, the Democratic party’s de facto big kahuna, to “[Michael] Dukakis without the administrative skill.”

Of course, the official meme coming from the White House is that one ought to hate the game, not the player. After all, as White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs insisted earlier today, Mr. Obama did “absolutely” everything in his power to ensure that the Senate would produce the best bill possible. The only problem with this explanation is, as Glenn Greenwald already noted last Wednesday, with his usual aplomb, they’re selling you the goddamn Brooklyn Bridge with that one. Are you buying?

Gawker’s Alex Pareene is. In a post yesterday summarizing the mindset of the any-bill-is-better-than-none crowd, Mr. Pareene exhorted liberals (actually he called them “bill-killing liberals”) to “shut up.” Our response to Mr. Pareene, and to those who share his view, is more or less the same as digby’s—”to all the people who are telling liberals to STFU—STFU“—though potty-mouthed as we are, we would have spelled out the obscenity. Because one of the things about which we bill killers are supposed to remain silent is the curious fact of this so-called reform coinciding with a sudden dramatic spike in the stock prices of the healthcare industry. But hey, if it makes Cigna and Aetna happy, this bill can’t be that bad.