From The Dept. of Wishful Thinking Dept...

Want to know why nobody reads Time anymore? Try this bit of dreck on for size:

Take a good look around, Democrats, this is likely to be as bad as it's going to get.As Kate Pickert and I note in a story out today on time.com, the 24-hour cable net cycle has been stuck on ugly process maneuverings in the vacuum of no score from the Congressional Budget Office and no bill. This meme just adds to the back room aura and sweetheart reputation the legislation has enjoyed for months. You're getting hit on all sides – from the President, the Speaker, constituents, even donors. Oh, and, it turns out most folks really do hate you.

But, oh how quickly things can change. If you pass the bill, next week's coverage is likely to trumpet triumph, the most productive legislative session since LBJ, an historic and seminal victory.It's getting from here to there that's the hard part – especially for those 12-20 swing votes under the most pressure. For them, especially the vulnerable ones, this might not be rock bottom: they may well lose reelection. On the other hand, as Paul Begala told the House Democratic Caucus yesterday, does anyone think that voters at the polls in November will remember self-executing rules and the Cornhusker kickback? They didn't remember Tom DeLay's arm twisting(which won him a reprimand from the House Ethics Committee) on the Medicare Prescription Drug bill, no matter how hard Dems tried to remind them. So, really, this whole process brouhaha is directed at those swing Democrats, attempting to scare them into bringing down the bill. Because, if Republicans really thought that passage of health care reform was going to be bad for Dems, would they be protesting quite so much right now? As Republicans used to say before the 2004 elections defending Medicare Part D, it's hard to spend hundreds of billions of dollars expanding health care coverage and not have it be a net positive in the polls.

Of course the Democrat's kept men in the media and commentariat will attempt to paint it as a triumph for the Obama-Democratic Complex, but reality, I fear, is going to be quite different.

 

Perhaps the most remarkable achievement of the Obama presidency to date is turning health care reform into a 13+ month battle of attrition. There are no victors here:

• Obama emerges from this battle with his image in tatters. Rather than being a new and different kind of politician, he has shown himself to be the same old, same old. Only more so. Whether it's sell-outs to corporate or union interests (or both), or bribing/strong-arming legislators, Obama the Unsullied is no more.

• Democrats can call Obamacare whatever they want, but the fact remains it has deeply divided the electorate. Triumphalism doesn't change that. With at least 37 states and Congressional Republicans ready, able and willing to challenge the constitutionality of various aspects of the legislation, opposition will not go away quietly any time soon.

• Not even the Administration's own economic team believes either the economy of employment are going to improve to any meaningful extent in the near future. That means Democrats go into November with the economy in the crapper and unemployment around 10%. Their talking points for re-election? "Hey, we passed a stimulus bill that didn't work and a health care reform bill half of you hate." What could go wrong?

• The minute Obamacare passes, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Congressional Democrats and the Democratic Party own every bad thing that happens in the health care industry. The next round of health insurance rate increases? Every Republican politician with a pulse will point to them as proof positive of Obamacare's failure. And the more Democrats rail against the corporate greed of insurers in response, the worse Obamacare (and their efforts look). It's no-win in the biggest way possible.

There is no good outcome here for either Barack Obama or Congressional Democrats. A battle of attrition is just that - a battle of attrition. The Republican Party has not been driven from the field. Nor has it been mortally wounded. So while it appears that Obama is going to avoid being Napoleon at Waterloo, what is becoming increasing clear is that he is not going to avoid being Haig at the Somme.

Comments

[Buck O'Fama]

Maybe Obama is really Hitler on D-Day, demanding his generals fight the "real invasion" at the Pas de Calais instead of the red herring at Normandy. That mistake of hubris and arrogance cost him and his followers, well, everything. Something to look forward to if the analogy is correct. Call it Obama's Health Calais Reform bill.

[ditz kimberly]

If the media were disingenuous cheerleaders for lying Dem candidates before the election, why would our lying Dem leaders believe media pronouncements now?

[richard mcenroe]

In the past year I've been involved with people trapped in both the VA and Medicare corruption. I also know people experienced with the "medical care" available on the reservations.

The Federal Government can't hand out a tongue depressor without stealing millions along the way. Anybody who believes Federal healthcare under Obie or ANY administration will improve should be forced to get 'treated' by it exclusively.

[Allen]

If it's not already the democrats new slogan should be "hope and prayer." If the legislation passes, businesses and insurance companies will be calculating their exposure.

My bet is they won't make the same assumptions the democrats and the CBO did. Increased premiums, maybe shave the work force a bit. And, they will act quickly not at some distant point down the road.

The only question I have is do I go long or short on the medical sector.

[kimberly]

If this disease of a bill passes and the Repubs don't eradicate it, we're going to end up with an exaggerated two-tiered system in which the very rich get their medical needs met privately and the middle classes on down settle for less than satisfactory regulated, apportioned care and chronic hypertension from the frustrating, metastasizing blue-beholden bureaucracy. Medical conditions will become a thousand different lobby causes and coverage will be given (Democratic) political consideration always, along with progressive means testing, premiums and taxes.

Government administered "fairness in outcome" is a bankrupt concept, anyway, and certainly since there is nothing "fair" about how our DC apparatchiks and their big donors will remain in the upper tier of care upon passage of this massive masses manipulation posing as a Good Idea for The People. Richard's also right about the $$ to be squandered, not saved. The Demwits know it, too, but how can they pass up their Gaia-given responsibility to tell us how to live for the collective good?

[Hot Pants]

Haig at the Somme. What an apt comparison.

[aelfheld]

The entertaining aspect of this 'battle of attrition' is that it's almost completely internecine.

[Mike Myers]

Yup it's like the Somersets and the Lincolnshires were shooting each other in the back.

[Copper Quark]

But, oh how quickly things can change.

True. When you're unemployed next November, your phone lines will be blessedly quiet.

[Steve]

As a student of military history I like the Haig comment. I had to explain to my friends who Haig was and the Battle of the Somme, but once I did, even they thought it was an appropriate analogy. Well played!

[Jon]

To be absolutely fair to Haig, he didn't want to attack on the Somme in July, 1916 because he knew his army wasn't ready for an offensive. He had to attack for reasons of the coalition: the French were bleeding to death at Verdun and needed the British to help take the pressure off.

[TmjUtah]

Sunday's vote isn't about winning anything. It will merely be another tension on our already badly fractured society.

They'll do illegal immigration amnesty the same way. More tension. That law will be written to allow several million new voters by 2010. Unemployment nearer twenty than ten percent nationwide by then, too.

Tension. Depression. Civil Unrest.

Wow. We really need a strong hand to fix things, don't we?