{"id":3958,"date":"2010-03-23T07:43:12","date_gmt":"2010-03-23T11:43:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/?p=3958"},"modified":"2010-03-23T11:04:03","modified_gmt":"2010-03-23T15:04:03","slug":"aha-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2010\/03\/23\/aha-3\/","title":{"rendered":"aha!…"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Why Boehner is angry — and Republicans should worry<\/a>
<\/strong>Passage may clear away the propaganda and let voters understand healthcare reform – a scary prospect <\/sup>
<\/strong>Salon<\/font><\/strong>
By Joe Conason
Mar 22, 2010<\/div>\n

…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?<\/sup><\/p>\n

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.<\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n

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.”<\/sup><\/p>\n

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?”<\/sup><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
The article by David Frum is getting a lot of play in the Press. But maybe it’s because it states the obvious lessons from the healthcare debate – lessons that transcend the actual topic. I was focused earlier on Frum’s actually sounding like a Conservative rather than mouthing the principles of conservatism while acting on the directives of big money as a "corporate stooge<\/font><\/strong>." But a lot of the Press is focusing on "outing" the contemporary Republican\/Conservative strategy so clearly. I would paraphrase it simply, keep people from knowing the truth<\/font><\/strong>. To summarize Frum’s thesis:<\/div>\n