“We'll go through the gate,” the speaker of the House vowed. “If the gate is closed, we'll go over the fence. If the fence is too high, we'll pole vault in. If that doesn't work, we'll parachute in. But we're going to get health-care reform passed for the American people.”
The speaker of that quote was not Paul Ryan but Nancy Pelosi, just over seven years ago. Don't be surprised, though, if the current keeper of the gavel utters a similar statement in the weeks ahead. Pelosi made that declaration at a precarious moment back in 2010, in the days after Democrats had lost their filibuster-proof majority in the Senate and the drive to enact the Affordable Care Act appeared on the verge of collapse.
