Conservatives, can the triumphalism. We are in the middle of a fight for our freedom.

There is a strange and disturbing disconnect on the health care reform front.

On one hand, for the last two months, conservative pundits have been trumpeting the country’s stirring turn against Obamacare and speaking of the Democrats’ planned nationalization of the health care industry as though it had already been defeated and had no chance of passage. On the other hand, the Democrats’ planned nationalization of the health care industry keeps moving forward toward passage. Or, as Macbeth put it,

and wither’d murder,…
thus with his stealthy pace.
With Tarquin’s ravishing strides, towards his design
Moves like a ghost.

At the end of last week, a bill (don’t ask me what’s in it, even the senators who voted for it don’t claim to know that) was passed by the Senate Finance Committee, with its next destination the Senate floor. Meaning that all that is needed is 51 Democratic votes to get the nose of socialized medicine inside America’s tent, fundamentally and very likely irreversibly altering the nature of our society.

So why the conservative triumphalism? I again am having flashbacks to September 1998, when conservative talk show hosts got it into their heads that President Clinton had “melted down” and “self-destructed” in his grand jury testimony about Monica Lewinksy, and that when the four hour videotape of his testimony was shown on TV, Clinton would be finished, he would have to resign the presidency. Conservatives were so on fire with this certainty, almost literally jumping up and down in anticipation, that when the videotape was broadcast and Clinton did not melt down or do anything remotely resembling a meltdown, the entire momentum of the Lewinsky affair changed, and from that moment on, Clinton’s survival in the presidency was never in doubt. With their behavior that resembled that of drunken fans at a football game rather than thoughtful human beings, the anti-Clintonites’ sheer greedy overeagerness to win assured their defeat.

Is something like that happening now? Has the spreading opposition to Obamacare blinded the conservatives to the likelihood that the Democrats still have the votes to pass this horror into law?

* * *

On the positive side, the Times article I linked above lists the formidable obstacles that still stand in the way of passage, and the Times also has an interesting story about Sen. Blanche Lincoln, a moderate Democrat from Arkansas, who will not go along with several features in the bill that the left demands.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 05, 2009 11:24 AM | Send