Pubic protest goes public

You can't read it from this strategically cropped photo from the News & Observer, but the top line of the sign that the young woman in the little black dress is holding reads "No Pubic Option." (There's no "L" in that middle word.) You don't have to take my word for it; you can see the entire sign in the N&O's photo gallery (it's picture No. 2), and that version of the picture is the one that ran on the N&O's front page Friday.

The photo accompanied a story about protests outside Sen. Kay Hagan's Raleigh office by people opposed to health care reform proposals before Congress, especially, it seems, anything that involved a "pubic option." Other people at the protest held signs that say "If you didn't read it, don't sign it" (sounds like good advice) and "Where's the birth certificate?" (maybe she ended up at the wrong protest). But the woman with the "No Pubic Option; No Single Payer; No Socialism" sign is the one who intrigued me. Eschewing the usual jeans-and-T-shirt dress code of street protesters, she was there in her little black sleeveless dress with a deep-V neckline (sunglasses dangling from the lowest part of the V) and an American flag in her off hand. She doesn't look like the type who'd want to take away your pubic option, but sometimes looks can be deceiving.

If elected officials like Mark Sanford and Eliot Spitzer and David Vitter can exercise their pubic option, then, by golly, average Americans should have the same option! And I'm just as curious as the woman in the picture about where Kay Hagan stands on the pubic option.