Last spring they refused to create an exchange because they hoped the Supreme Court would rule it unconstitutional. Then they refused to create one because they thought Mitt Romney would win and take nasty universal health care away. Instead he lost.

So now they just pout, stamp their feet, and take it out on the citizens. This wouldn't have happened if the Democrats had won the House. And there would be no right-to-work threat today.

But that's not what happened. In a classic boneheaded Brewer move, Democrats spent lavishly on an attempt to defeat Speaker of the House Jase Bolger, who was caught up in the party-switching scandal. They narrowed his margin, but he survived.

No surprise; he has a heavily GOP seat. But if they had knocked him off — so what? Republicans would just have picked another speaker. Bolger is tainted goods anyway, and could still be indicted by the one-woman grand jury now investigating the scandal.

Wouldn't it have been better for both the unions and the party to try to win a Democratic majority? I'm sorry. That would mean rational thought. So now the unions, instead of being protected by the constitution, are facing a fight for survival.

We'll see what happens next. There has been a faction of coldly calculating businessmen — Snyder is one — who have thought there was no reason to rile up union supporters with right to work.

The unions, they argue behind closed doors, have been working hard at making themselves irrelevant and impotent anyway.

Apparently, they were more right than they knew. 

Tribute to Sonny: Sonny Eliot was a cultural icon for a zillion baby boomers who grew up in these parts, and a lifelong Detroiter who genuinely loved the city. He may have not been the world's most progressive thinker, but he did spend more than a year squatting in a Nazi prison camp, which is more than most of us have ever done.

Wayne State University is putting on a special tribute to the man Thursday from 5 to 7 p.m. in the school's Community Arts Auditorium. A number of well-known media personalities are going to speak, and they are going to be nice enough to let me talk too.

Jack Lessenberry opines weekly for Metro Times. Send comments to letters@metrotimes.com.

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