I engage in occasional SHOUTING matches with my cousin, a die-hard conservative, over many things, among them health care reform. In all fairness to her, she does agree with me that there are inequities in the system. She is opposed to giving people quality health care even if they are able bodied and refuse to work, and she is vociferously opposed to any health care for illegal aliens. I don’t disagree with her feelings on this, but I point out that who we are as a people is defined by how well we are willing to treat others, no matter who they are or where they come from. I also point out that the most responsible people she knows are one medical disaster away from financial ruin.

There are severe inequities in American health care, and anybody who denies that has an interest in the status quo. One thing I am sick of, pardon the pun, is people who call themselves “conservatives” who are clearly nothing more than mouthpieces for big business. In case you have not noticed, big business is well into its second decade of attempting to buy the political dialog and sell it back to us as pure propaganda. And they do their best to put as many of their kind as possible on the bench, to protect them down the road.

I like to point out to my cousin that these are the people she implicitly defends.

However, we are both also afraid of big government, because that is a step toward state control. It is a step toward communism in its worst forms. It makes sense to acknowledge that governing a diverse collection of humans is unavoidably messy, and to simply embrace the mess. We get some things right, we get some things wrong, we go back and try again. That’s my “politics” in a nutshell.

So what she and I have been SHOUTING about is the “public option.” We both oppose it, so where we disagree is: Was it ever a serious proposal or was it always a bargaining chip? She says the “Liberals” were serious about it. I say she doesn’t understand politics. And she really doesn’t. She’s far too literal to understand politics.

Yes, “Liberals” wanted a public option. They truthfully want state-run health care. They want socialized medicine all the way. However, “Liberals” and “Democrats” are not the same thing. Yes all Liberals are Democrats, but not all Democrats are Liberals, most especially not the man in the White House. The main reason Obama beat Hillary Clinton and John Edwards in the Democratic primary was that he was, by far, the most centrist of them.

Yes, Obama pitched for it. Back in January. In the next breath he said it wasn’t etched in stone. From that moment I knew it would never be in the bill, but it would hang around as long as it was useful as a counterweight.

We are down to the final moments. The public option has been replaced with a government agency which will oversee “collective” plans using the same rules which govern congressional plans. This excites congressmen. They can sell this. Liberals insisted on a provision to allow 55 year olds to buy into Medicare. It made it into the latest Senate proposal.

Senator Lieberman said the bill is big enough without it. Tonight the Senate is preparing to drop it.

And so we will head into next week with 60 votes in the Senate, a government-regulated private collective and no public option, no expansion of government-run health care.

In other words, a CONSERVATIVE health care overhaul. Just like I told my cousin it would be.

I’ve been incredibly harsh in my assessment of the first year of the Obama presidency, but I now see the wisdom in his approach. He knows that the opposition is going to have its say, and in this era that means 24 hour cycles of pointed attack. He realizes that he must allow enough air into the process for there to be enough left after the fusillade to keep the bill from dying. He took his time with health care and he will end the year with majorities in both houses approving major reform. Reconciliation is yet to come and will certainly be a struggle, but to have come this far, ultimately this soon, is worthy of recognition and worthy of praise.

There just might be a method to this man’s madness after all.

At the risk of coming across as Neanderthal Man:

Tiger Woods needs to go back to work.

Drop Elin and the kids off in Sweden, stay through Christmas, then get back on his plane and come home. Get out to the course with his coach and start working on his game, start preparing to take the PGA apart the way we all expect him to, now that he has his rehab year under his belt.

Yes, he “cheated.” It may be true that his marriage is over. That may actually be for the best, since Tiger clearly enjoys playing the field, so to speak. Perhaps his mistake was to get married in the first place. Perhaps he was just the latest man who believed that marriage would “cure” his “appetite”, so to speak.

None of that is a crime. I find it somewhat natural. Evidently it was unnatural for Tiger to “behave.’

So, let Tiger be Tiger. Elin, you get the chalet, the yacht, and a lifetime of financial riches. You’ll be OK. The humiliation is his, not yours. You don’t really want him to be destroyed, do you?

On the other hand, he can’t really be trusted either. So call it what it is, a marriage gone bad, and let everybody move on with their lives.

If I’m not seeing Tiger back on the links by March at the latest, I’m going to get very angry. 2010 is a no-excuses year for the man who is unafraid of predicting his own calender-year Grand Slam, a feat which has never been accomplished in the modern era. He says he’s already done it - not all in the same calendar year, but in a row - so why can’t he do it again?

That’s my Tiger, smiling for the camera and telling us in his calm way that he has every intention of doing things that nobody else has any hope of doing.

I’m not even mad at him for his dalliances - they didn’t affect me, did they? No, this is between him, Elin and the kids, and they will find a way to figure it out. Maybe a John and Yoko sabbatical, who knows? Sure, it’s tabloid fodder, but then so is Britney Spears’ ass, so what does that tell you?

Tiger, come up with a plan to go forward with your private life - don’t worry about “saving” anything, just do what makes sense - and then, as soon as possible, please:

Go back to work.