On Sunday, March 21, the U. S. House of Representative made history.

Democrats in the House, in the face of unanimous Republican opposition, extended healthcare coverage to another 30 million Americans. By a vote of 219 to 212 the house sent to the President, unchanged, the bill passed by the Senate with a 60 vote majority in December of last year.

President Obama's signature will make that bill a law, and with any luck at all, as second bill containing a number of much-needed and almost universally popular amendments will follow.

Not a single Republican lawmaker supported the bill. Worse, in their mis-guided efforts to whip up and maintain enthusiasm for their untenably negative stance, the GOP managed to attract, embrace and give voice to some of the most ill-informed, narrow-minded, mean-spirited opposition to raise its ugly head since Strom and the Dixiecrats opposed passage of civil rights legislation, or antiwar protesters jeered and spat on soldiers returning from Vietnam.

In the end the better angels of our nature, justice, generosity, compassion and conscience not least among them, prevailed.

The new healthcare structure is by no means perfect, but it' a good start.

Well, well, well.

Cuccinelli

Speaking of empowering ill-informed, narrowminded, mean-spirited opposition, our gay-bashing laughing stock of an Attorney General has stepped up for another round his ever popular stand-up routine, "strike out and embarrass us all."

Apparently convinced that he not only has some special insight into the mind of God, the nature of life, the evolution of the planet, sex education, the primacy of the English language, and just how many handguns it takes to screw in a lightbulb, Ken now threatens to file a lawsuit to undermine the new national healthcare program. Backed by a coterie of opinions from diploma mill lawyers and worse, my fellow UVA grad firmly believes the federal government can't require individuals to purchase anything.

He'll do his best to take his case all the way to the Supreme Court, on your back and your dollar.

This sort of thing may be great for John Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Mr. Jefferson, on the other hand, weeps... and so should we.