Academic

MEGAN MCARDLE: ?Health care reform has not survived the worst Republicans can throw at it. It?s su?

By Glenn Reynolds

MEGAN MCARDLE: “Health care reform has not survived the worst Republicans can throw at it. It’s survived–barely–the opening volley.”

MICKEY KAUS: “Obama doesn’t need to get “Republicans on board.” He doesn’t need to get Blue Dog Democrats on board. He needs to get voters on board. They aren’t on board now –39-37 against, according to Gallup. (When Congress passed Medicare in 1965, by way of contrast, Gallup found a 63-28 majority in favor.) … If the Dems’ health care bill were actually popular, all the vote-bargaining problems they now face would be easily solved. If the bill remains relatively unpopular, with those opposed much more likely to base their vote on the issue, it could easily fail to pass even if versions of it get past the House and Senate and into a conference committee.”

Camille Paglia: “Too late for Obama to turn it around? . . . As an Obama supporter and contributor, I am outraged at the slowness with which the standing army of Democratic consultants and commentators publicly expressed discontent with the administration’s strategic missteps this year. I suspect there had been private grumbling all along, but the media warhorses failed to speak out when they should have — from week one after the inauguration, when Obama went flat as a rug in letting Congress pass that obscenely bloated stimulus package. Had more Democrats protested, the administration would have felt less arrogantly emboldened to jam through a cap-and-trade bill whose costs have made it virtually impossible for an alarmed public to accept the gargantuan expenses of national healthcare reform. (Who is naive enough to believe that Obama’s plan would be deficit-neutral? Or that major cuts could be achieved without drastic rationing?) “

Full post as published by Instapundit.com on September 09, 2009 (boomark / email).