I know you are probably getting tons of advice from all corners about what you should do now in the aftermath of the upset election of Scott Brown, a Republican, as a senator in the bluest of states, Massachusetts.

You, and we, are hearing from the punditocracy that it was a repudiation of your overreaching agenda, of health care reform and of all those other “ultra-liberal” causes you’ve espoused since being sworn in exactly a year ago.

Democrats are indulging in paroxysms of hand wringing (the Chicken Little thing), while Republicans are ecstatic beyond belief (What me worry?).  Meanwhile, the country is waiting to see what you’re going to do.

Here, sir, is my advice: Take off the gloves.

Let us see what you really believe in instead of leaving us to fathom what it is that we think you believe in.  And when you’ve shown us what you believe in—then fight for it.

Enough with the bipartisanship already!  If it isn’t obvious by now that you’re not going to get any support from across the aisle—for pretty much anything—then something is wrong with your receptor.  We know you have the fire in the belly and know how to fight.  You overcame long odds to become president after all.

But because you haven’t really fought for anything all out since taking office, and have mainly given half-hearted support to your initiatives, the opposition has been able to get away with its unending chorus of “No!”

Case in point: Health care reform.  I’ll be damned if I know—and I cover it!—where you stand on the issue.  And that’s the problem, sir.  For someone so articulate, you have a way of fuzzying up, if not hiding altogether, what your goals are and what it is you really want to accomplish. 

You and I know that “No” is not going to solve any of the problems that face this country.  In the language of the schoolyard, you’ve got to make your opponents “put up or shut up.”  And if they can’t or don’t “put up,” then start pounding them for doing nothing.  Harry Truman did it.  Bill Clinton did it.  You can do it.

You were elected in large part to change things, if I might remind you of your mantra, sir. 

It’s true you inherited the biggest mess of any president since FDR.  But messes make the man, if you get my drift.

A couple of other things: I don’t think you’ve got a grip on the amount of rage that’s out there.  People want jobs and security for their homes and families. They want to see a sense of fair treatment prevail.  They want to know that the country’s not giving away the bank—to the banks!

If you don’t get on the right side of this rage, you’re going to be a one-term president.

So, take on the big banks, which are the focus of so much of the rage.  But don’t propose measures as a bureaucrat.  And, sir, calling a bevy of bank CEOs “fat cat bankers” one time is just not going to cut it.  As in anything else, practice makes perfect.  So, once more with feeling!

If the country is still limping along a year from now, with unemployment still sky high and people feeling you’re not doing much about it, there’ll be nobody to blame but yourself.

You can look at the Massachusetts election as a reason to run for cover or as a wake-up call.  I sincerely hope you decide to do the latter.  But remember one thing about wake-up calls, sir.  They don’t do any good unless you get out of bed.

So rarely do I find myself agreeing with anything Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., has to say (actually, I don’t think it’s ever happened) that I feel compelled to recognize a gesture of his with which I feel in complete agreement.

Coburn likes to play the spoiler and I believe that was the impetus behind his introducing an amendment to the health care reform legislation now being debated in the Senate.  What his amendment said was that senators would have to be covered by any public option plan that ended up in the bill. 

As someone who is dead-set against any public option, Coburn surely meant this as a way of sticking it to his fellow senators (across the aisle, naturally) who are strongly in favor of a public option being included in the bill.

Senators are now covered, in the words of the New York Times, by “gold-plated coverage through the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.”  In other words, really good coverage that Coburn probably knows many of his fellow senators would be reluctant to give up.

So perhaps even he was surprised when some Democrats not only supported his amendment but volunteered to co-sponsor it.  One particularly enthusiastic backer of this amendment was, the Times noted, Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio. 

Brown was quoted as saying, “I think it’s important that we show we mean it, we believe in it, that it works for the public and we’re willing to put our own families on it.  This says we have to go on the public option.  I think they are right.”

If those senators who really believe a public option is necessary were to follow Brown’s lead and commit to being covered by the government-run plan, it could be a game-changer, particularly in the public mind. 

A lot of the resentment against members of Congress is that the laws and regulations they make for us to live by don’t seem to need to apply to them, at least in their estimation.  

So rarely do politicians put their money where their mouth is that we seem to have forgotten that it is still possible.  This amendment would take a nice big whack at the elitism that people feel Congress accords itself as a matter of course.

If Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is truly committed to having a public option in the final bill, then he should start a very public campaign of rounding up the 60 votes to get the amendment passed.  He might not make it, but even if the effort failed, it would be a moral victory of sorts.  And goodness knows there have been few enough of those coming out of Capitol Hill lately.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.  But no, it’s not likely that even the great man is going to be able to bring health care reform legislation to President Obama’s desk by Christmas.

The man that history has picked to be Santa in this particular case doesn’t look the part in any obvious way.  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is a tall, thin Mormon from Nevada, not a stout ruddy deliveryman from north of the Arctic Circle.

But even if Reid was blessed with Santa’s perennially amazing ability to get ready in one month’s time span the wishes and desires of millions upon millions of fervent believers, he still would have a major problem and one that would stump even Santa himself: Reid has to deal with 99 other senators, each of whom thinks he or she should be the one delivering all those goodies, or else be the one who gets to decide who’s naughty and therefore shouldn’t receive anything at all.

And let’s not forget that within the hallowed chamber of the Senate, like something out of a Dickensian nightmare, reside not one but a whole crowd of Ebenezer Scrooges whose response to Santa’s wanting to brighten the spirits of millions of uninsureds is a resounding “Bah, humbug!”

These Scrooges not only have the ability to drive an entire country full of poor Tiny Tims to distraction, but some are also actively plotting to tie Santa up in knots so badly that there is no chance whatsoever that he will be able to deliver the presents for which so many have been yearning for the last year, if not much, much longer.

The problem for Reid is that if he can’t convince at least 60 of his fellow senators how important it is to get the raw material for the presents out of the storeroom and into the workshop, he’s going to miss the very slim window of opportunity between Congress’s Thanksgiving recess and its Christmas recess.  In that case, he’ll never be able to deliver the package to President Obama in time for the holiday celebration.

But almost as daunting as getting the raw materials into the workshop is getting a finished product to put into the sleigh.  There are plenty of obstacles and slippery ice every step of the way.

First of all, those senatorial Scrooges will have unlimited opportunity to take their whacks at the unfinished product as it is being crafted.  And once they’ve finished working it over (if they do), then whatever remains has to be taken by Reid to an interim area where the sometimes mischievous elves from the House will try their hand at refashioning what the Senate has given a pounding, hoping to change it so that President Obama will get more of what he really wants for Christmas.

Then the thing has to be carted back to both the Senate and the House and put on display for all to see and decide if that’s what they want, after all. 

So you can see the deck is pretty stacked against Santa’s being able to deliver by Christmas. The danger is that even if he got the package ready after Christmas, there’s a strong possibility that he’d be so weighted down at that point by having had to eat this compromise and swallow that amendment that he just would not be able to get the sleigh off the ground.  The holiday magic would be gone.

And being stuck in the sleigh is when Santa would be particularly vulnerable.  Those senatorial Scrooges have plenty of allies (men and women who like to masquerade in 18^th century costumes and carry pitchforks) who would then have Santa right where they want him.  

For your sake, Virginia, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.  These pitchforkers are the sort who would take a lot of pleasure in saying, “I killed Santa.”