In honor of the death of the Public Option, let us pay tribute to the man that killed it.
Friends, Romans and countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury the Public Option, not to praise it;
The evil that men do lives after them,
The good is oft interred with their bones.
So let it be with the Public Option – The noble Lieberman
Hath told you that the Public Option was ambitious:
If it were so it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath the Public Option answered it …
Here, under leave of Lieberman and the rest,
Come I to speak at the Public Option’s funeral …
It was my friend, Faithful and just to all:
But Lieberman said it was ambitious;
And Lieberman is an honorable man,
He has brought many bills to the floor,
Whose contributions did his general coffers fill:
Did this of the Public Option seem ambitious?
But Lieberman is an honorable man …
When that the poor have cried, the Public Option hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Lieberman says the Public Option was ambitious:
And Lieberman is an honorable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal (a Roman annual festival)
Where thrice the Public Option was presented a kingly crown,
Which it did thrice refuse; was this ambition?
Yet Lieberman says the Public Option was ambitious.
And, sure, he is an honorable man.
I speak not to disprove what Lieberman spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love the Public Option once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then to mourn for the Public Option?
O judgment thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason… Bear with me;
My heart is there in the coffin there with the Public Option.
And I must pause till it comes back to me.