1 Boring Old Man

Why Boehner is angry — and Republicans should worry
^{Passage may clear away the propaganda and let voters understand healthcare reform – a scary prospect}
Salon
By Joe Conason
Mar 22, 2010

^{…No doubt John Boehner is well aware of that public contempt. Watching the minority leader speak on the House floor, pretending to be a populist demagogue rather than a corporate stooge, his anger seemed less provoked by the specifics of the healthcare legislation than with its likely political impact. If he feels so confident that the people will massively repudiate this bill in the midterm election – and thus make him speaker – why was he so furious? Why did the bill’s imminent passage turn his usual orangey-tan complexion almost incandescent red with rage?}

The answer could be found in the subtext of Boehner’s speech, which did not dwell on the bill’s specific provisions, beyond its alleged expense. He knows that arguing the bill’s specific provisions is very dangerous to his party, because so many of them are quite popular and the public will hold Republicans in disrepute for opposing them. An informed public was always the ultimate peril for the Republicans in this process, so distorted during the past year by wild propaganda about death panels, government takeovers, and the entire mythology of the Obama administration’s socialist-communist-Nazi-totalitarianism.

^{Creating those crazy expectations was a strategy that depended on the bill never passing. If and when people learn what is actually in the legislation, many of them will realize that they were misled, and will end up appreciating most of what the Democrats have passed, after all… The Republicans bet on killing healthcare reform and lost, says Frum – and by November, voters will come to understand the appealing aspects of the legislation, even as the broader economic and political environment improves for Democrats. Now he warns, “It’s a good bet that conservatives are over-optimistic about November – by then the economy will have improved and the immediate goodies in the healthcare bill will be reaching key voting blocs.”}

^{Frum is harshly realistic about the chances to reverse this historic step forward: “No illusions please: This bill will not be repealed. Even if Republicans scored a 1994 style landslide in November, how many votes could we muster to re-open the ‘doughnut hole’ and charge seniors more for prescription drugs? How many votes to re-allow insurers to rescind policies when they discover a pre-existing condition? How many votes to banish 25 year-olds from their parents’ insurance coverage? And even if the votes were there – would President Obama sign such a repeal?”}

• The Republicans bet on defeating the healthcare bill rather that participating in the debate and trying to introduce "conservative" principles into it.
• Now that they’ve lost, people will find out what’s really in the bill, and like it.
• People will then realize that what the Republicans said about the bill before it passed was utter nonsense [which it was].

Political scientist Ruy Teixeira  found hard evidence that underscores Frum’s fears in a public opinion experiment undertaken by Newsweek last month. The magazine’s pollsters first asked respondents whether they support or oppose the president’s healthcare reform plan, with predictable results: 40 percent in favor, 49 percent opposed, 11 percent undecided.

Then the pollsters described major aspects of the bill – the insurance exchanges, the strict regulation of insurance company policies, the requirement for insurance with government assistance to those who need help, the tax on expensive plans, the fines on those who don’t get insurance, and the public option. Not only did most of those aspects of the bill poll favorably, but the overall legislation ticked up by 8 points when the pollsters asked the same people again whether they support or oppose it. The second time reversed the initial results: 48 percent in favor, 43 percent opposed, 9 percent unsure.

That sharp turnaround in opinion occurred in a matter of minutes during a telephone call with a stranger. Now the president and the congressional Democrats have seven months to make the same argument, and smart Republicans are properly terrified that they will.

In the literature of the Zen Buddhists, there is much said about enlightenment – Satori – that instantaneous awareness that suddenly comes to the student. In the stories, after years of study, some minor thing happens and the student bursts into a new state of understanding. Aha! Many of the sayings are paradoxes. "You can’t get it through books. You can’t get it without books." But the gist of things is that by studying, one reaches a state of understanding the deepest impossibilities of a problem and is prepared to learn that the solution is that you’ve been asking the wrong questions all along. The paradigm is the Buddha’s enlightenment as a lotus blossom fell into the stream. For ten years, he had struggled with "the why of suffering?" After his enlightenment, he spoke of the Four Noble Truths. The first one was, "Suffering is inevitable."

I feel a little bit like Frum is the Zen Master and has lead me to an enlightenment. Five years ago, I first understood "Talking Points." Karl Rove is the paradigm. He takes some issue and parses it. He then constructs a "Talking Point" to lean each element in the direction he wants things to go. The "Talking Points" are designed to distort and obscure things. Then he only talks about the "Talking Point." For five years, I’ve been increasingly able to see them as they appear, but like all the rest of the bloggers, I spend hours and hours trying to point them out and refute them. My enlightenment is that the content of the Talking Points is immaterial. Whether they are true or false is immaterial. Talking Points are Inevitable. If I’m paying attention to the Talking Point, I’ve already been derailed. All the Talking Point is for is to keep a person from seeing or talking about the truth. The truth is lost in the Talking Point. Aha!

The Teabaggers are screaming the Talking Points, but saying nothing about the bill itself. Joe Wilson is yelling "you lie!" and Randy Neugebauer screams "baby-killer" – neither is either true or pertinent. Frum’s point [and Boehner’s fear] is that now we’ll read the health care bill, and realize that the Republican Talking Points we’ve listened to are immaterial and false. Aha!