The can't-do spirit.

• Author: Ehrenreich, Barbara
• Position: Flip Side

After their roaring two-house victory, the Democrats are squeaking about micro-policies. There will be no impeachment, we're told, though maybe a bit more oversight of Halliburton-style war profiteering. No withdrawal from Iraq, only a "phased redeployment." And The New York Times assures us that the Dems "have largely dropped ... talk of a Canadian-style national health insurance." Instead, they might try to reverse the Medicare drug plan's ban on bargaining for drug price discounts.

They've caught the can't-do spirit that hovers over that former malarial swamp, Washington, D.C. Well, maybe they caught it long ago, when the Republican Congressional sweep of '94 sent Bill Clinton into long policy ruminations on school uniforms and midnight basketball. Since then, it's been almost nonstop can't-do: can't-do universal health insurance, can't-do hurricanes.

Then it turned out that we couldn't do war either, at least if that meant whipping the Taliban or finding an honorable way out of Iraq.

Here's a "phased redeployment" plan: Phase one, bus the troops to the nearest functioning airport in Saudi Arabia. Phase two, put them on regular commercial flights to the United States.

According to Travelocity, the airfare part would cost about $1,500 a person (coach class), or $225 million for 150,000 troops. If the government won't come up with the ticket price, I'm sure thousands of ordinary citizens would happily dig into their own pockets. Hell, I'd spring for first class.

When it comes to health care, the more cautious Dems trace their can't-do spirit to the great Hillary health reform debacle of 1993. We tried, they say, and it didn't work. But what did they try? The Hill health plan would have created a vast new level of bureaucracy to contract for insurance from the big companies, thus tightening their evil grip over American health care.

Look, millions of voters didn't swing toward the Democrats because they wanted a $15 discount on their statins and beta-blockers. They voted out the can't-do Republicans in part because health costs are an immediate threat to ordinary Americans' livelihoods and lives. They want...