A swing and a Mitt

Mitt Romney was in the news on Wednesday giving advice to his pal Barack. Mitt took his swing at steering Obama in the right direction on health care and found nothing but air. What was Mitt's sage advice to Obama? "Slow down". Yeah that's good advice.

Hey, if you're going to jump off of a cliff, do it slow. Sure you'll still be a broken, quivering mass on the rocks at the base of the cliff, but at least you didn't "rush" into it. Everybody knows that all the bad things turn out better if they're done sloooooowww. Don't listen to that dope that tells you not to jump.

Here's some sage advice for Mitt. If you're going to try and convince voters that you're a conservative in the next election, don't go around bragging about your bi-partisan misadventures with Teddy Kennedy.

We don't need more cooperation in Washington. We don't need people reaching across aisles (unless they're doing it to slap a liberal). We need folks to take stands on principle and not compromise. It isn't about just getting something done. In fact, it should be mostly about making sure that the wrong thing doesn't get done.

Once upon a time in a former life I had the joy of being a brick-layer's helper. New to the job and still having a few things to learn I was caught hesitating at some point in the first couple of days. The boss was quick to hit me with; "Do something even if it's wrong". Now, laying bricks is hard work and it takes some skill to do it well and I'm not disparaging brick layers in any way. Having said that, the boss did not intend for his comment to be taken literally, and we weren't exactly working on multi-trillion dollar destruction and reassembly of the most sophisticated health care system in the world (if you know what I mean).

Mitt's advice to Obama should have been to stop. Congress doesn't need to just "do something". Of all the things that I'm sure of, very close to the top is the certainty that the current cast of characters in Washington doesn't need to do one single thing to health care. If they want to undo some previous government meddling I might go along with that, if they take a couple of giant steps back from that cliff first.

Going slow or fast at this point is all about the start of this government boondoggle. The biggest problems with this issue probably don't lie in the starting, they lie in the ultimate destination. Jumping off of that cliff starts out with a pretty nice view and the wind in your hair might even be nice, but it's not that tough to predict how things will turn out. Our health care system is not that bad Mitt. Just tell Obama to stop.