I said a week or so ago that I wasn't going to focus much attention on the health care bill any more because the Democrats just don't have the votes to ram it through Congress. But now they seem so dedicated to trying to do so that I assume they must actually believe they can get the votes. So for at least another two weeks, it's back to the salt mines on the health care bill.
I was really ready to move on to another issue. Aren't you? This is just another thing that is going to make people hate the Democrats—that they're forcing us to go over and over and over an issue that we've already thought through, and where we've already rejected their arguments.
One of the things that has lit a fire under me is the realization that "reconciliation"—the attempt to bypass the filibuster in the Senate to make revisions to ObamaCare—is a sideshow. I mentioned that in last night's edition of TIA Daily, but I want to re-emphasize it today. Rich Lowry explains the issue well:
I don't think people understand that reconciliation isn't really that important except as a promise to members of the House…. [I]f the bill passes the House, the same bill has passed the Senate and the House and Obama can just sign the thing. It won't matter if the reconciliation process bogs down, except to those Democrats who thought the bill would be "fixed." But once they've voted, they've voted. Obama can say, "See you in the Rose Garden and we'll try to fix it next year."
As Jennifer Rubin points out, this means that "reconciliation" is just a ruse to trap gullible Democrats in the House. They will be induced to vote for the Senate bill, in exchange for a vague promise that the Senate will fix the things the House members don't like. But then the Senate has no real incentive to pass those fixes—and House members will be left explaining to the voters why they voted for the Cornhusker Kickback and special deals for unions and every other rotten part of the bill.
Some aren't going along. "Conservative" Democrat Bart Stupak has declared that he and eleven other House Democrats won't vote for the Senate bill because it allows federal funding of abortions—which means that Obama will have to arm-twist and bribe even more House members to get them to change their votes.
And Nancy Pelosi's job has been made just a little bit harder now that Georgia Republican Nathan Deal has decided to remain in the House for a few more weeks. Deal had announced he was quitting in order to run for governor of Georgia, but his departure would have reduced the number of votes needed for a majority, from 217 to 216. So he's staying on to help kill the bill.
Below, a Washington Examiner editorial describes the Democratic effort as "Pickett's Charge," a reference to the doomed final Confederate assault at Gettysburg. I smiled when I read that, because a few months ago my friend Gene Barth sent me a short parody of one of my favorite scenes from the 1993 film Gettysburg (based on a historical novel with a much better title: Michael Shaara's The Killer Angels).
In the scene, Robert E. Lee's second in command, General Longstreet, describes his misgivings about the charge Lee has just ordered. He ticks off the expected casualties from each phase of the assault, with the certainty of a "mathematical equation." He briefly entertains the hope that maybe, just maybe, the charge will succeed. Then he snaps back to reality and concludes: "so it's mathematical after all."
Gene concluded, borrowing from Longstreet's speech: "If they reach the roll call and get beyond it, they will suffer 50% casualties in November 2010. I do not think they will even reach the vote."
So is it mathematical after all? I hope so.
"Obama Calls Dems to Pickett's Charge," Washington Examiner, March 4
They started out in perfect alignment, 12,500 men stretching more than a mile, battle flags waving, bayonets fixed, and gazes focused on the enemy across the valley, tensely waiting for them on Cemetery Ridge. Less than an hour later, it was over, with more than half of them dead or wounded, their cause having reached its high-water mark and failed.
It was Pickett's Charge of the Confederates at Gettysburg in 1863, a horrendous, bloody carnage that could have been avoided, had not their commander, Gen. Robert E. Lee, been so determined to do it his way—a massed frontal assault against a nearly impregnable position.
It is to just such a political Pickett's Charge that President Obama now summons congressional Democrats on behalf of his health care reform proposal, a last desperate gamble to overcome a sturdy, strengthening line of Republican opposition reinforced beyond measure in recent months by the knowledge they stand with a solid majority of their countrymen. Obama and Democratic brigade commanders Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi know there will be terrible casualties among their troops come November, but still they urge them on, to sacrifice their jobs, careers and political futures for...2,700 pages of new bureaucratic rules, mandates, directives and edicts that will surely destroy the finest health care system in the world.
Robert Tracinski writes daily commentary at TIADaily.com. He is the editor of The Intellectual Activist (TIA) and contributor to The Freedom Fighter's Journal
I was really ready to move on to another issue. Aren't you? This is just another thing that is going to make people hate the Democrats—that they're forcing us to go over and over and over an issue that we've already thought through, and where we've already rejected their arguments.
One of the things that has lit a fire under me is the realization that "reconciliation"—the attempt to bypass the filibuster in the Senate to make revisions to ObamaCare—is a sideshow. I mentioned that in last night's edition of TIA Daily, but I want to re-emphasize it today. Rich Lowry explains the issue well:
I don't think people understand that reconciliation isn't really that important except as a promise to members of the House…. [I]f the bill passes the House, the same bill has passed the Senate and the House and Obama can just sign the thing. It won't matter if the reconciliation process bogs down, except to those Democrats who thought the bill would be "fixed." But once they've voted, they've voted. Obama can say, "See you in the Rose Garden and we'll try to fix it next year."
As Jennifer Rubin points out, this means that "reconciliation" is just a ruse to trap gullible Democrats in the House. They will be induced to vote for the Senate bill, in exchange for a vague promise that the Senate will fix the things the House members don't like. But then the Senate has no real incentive to pass those fixes—and House members will be left explaining to the voters why they voted for the Cornhusker Kickback and special deals for unions and every other rotten part of the bill.
Some aren't going along. "Conservative" Democrat Bart Stupak has declared that he and eleven other House Democrats won't vote for the Senate bill because it allows federal funding of abortions—which means that Obama will have to arm-twist and bribe even more House members to get them to change their votes.
And Nancy Pelosi's job has been made just a little bit harder now that Georgia Republican Nathan Deal has decided to remain in the House for a few more weeks. Deal had announced he was quitting in order to run for governor of Georgia, but his departure would have reduced the number of votes needed for a majority, from 217 to 216. So he's staying on to help kill the bill.
Below, a Washington Examiner editorial describes the Democratic effort as "Pickett's Charge," a reference to the doomed final Confederate assault at Gettysburg. I smiled when I read that, because a few months ago my friend Gene Barth sent me a short parody of one of my favorite scenes from the 1993 film Gettysburg (based on a historical novel with a much better title: Michael Shaara's The Killer Angels).
In the scene, Robert E. Lee's second in command, General Longstreet, describes his misgivings about the charge Lee has just ordered. He ticks off the expected casualties from each phase of the assault, with the certainty of a "mathematical equation." He briefly entertains the hope that maybe, just maybe, the charge will succeed. Then he snaps back to reality and concludes: "so it's mathematical after all."
Gene concluded, borrowing from Longstreet's speech: "If they reach the roll call and get beyond it, they will suffer 50% casualties in November 2010. I do not think they will even reach the vote."
So is it mathematical after all? I hope so.
"Obama Calls Dems to Pickett's Charge," Washington Examiner, March 4
They started out in perfect alignment, 12,500 men stretching more than a mile, battle flags waving, bayonets fixed, and gazes focused on the enemy across the valley, tensely waiting for them on Cemetery Ridge. Less than an hour later, it was over, with more than half of them dead or wounded, their cause having reached its high-water mark and failed.
It was Pickett's Charge of the Confederates at Gettysburg in 1863, a horrendous, bloody carnage that could have been avoided, had not their commander, Gen. Robert E. Lee, been so determined to do it his way—a massed frontal assault against a nearly impregnable position.
It is to just such a political Pickett's Charge that President Obama now summons congressional Democrats on behalf of his health care reform proposal, a last desperate gamble to overcome a sturdy, strengthening line of Republican opposition reinforced beyond measure in recent months by the knowledge they stand with a solid majority of their countrymen. Obama and Democratic brigade commanders Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi know there will be terrible casualties among their troops come November, but still they urge them on, to sacrifice their jobs, careers and political futures for...2,700 pages of new bureaucratic rules, mandates, directives and edicts that will surely destroy the finest health care system in the world.
Robert Tracinski writes daily commentary at TIADaily.com. He is the editor of The Intellectual Activist (TIA) and contributor to The Freedom Fighter's Journal
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