The White House has seized on a comment Jim DeMint made on a
conference call last week, which I
reported at the time: “If we are able to stop Obama on this,
it will be his Waterloo. It will break him.” I think that sort of
talk is unhelpful for Republicans, because killing Democratic
health care legislation isn't about damaging Obama politically,
it's about preventing the government takeover of one-sixth of our
economy, stopping job-killing tax increases on individuals and
small businesses, unsustainable deficits, and the deterioration
of the quality of health care in the U.S. It's about blocking
Democrats efforts now so that hopefully one day there will be an
opening to pass true health care reform. When Obama is
floundering on his own, there's no reason for DeMint to throw him
a life raft. Whenever Obama gets into political trouble, he
responds by misdirection. During the campaign, he'd point fingers
at Bush and McCain, and now it's Republicans who stand in the way
of change.
“This is all about politics,” Obama said
of the DeMint comment. “That describes exactly an attitude that
we’ve got to overcome, because what folks have in their minds is
that, somehow, this is about me."
Of course, this is silly, because Democrats have overwhelming
majorities in both chambers of Congress. If they want to pass
something, they can do it without a single Republican vote. To
block health care legislation, at least 40 House Democrats would
have to cross over to oppose it (even assuming uniform GOP
opposition), or at least one Senate Democrat would have to
support a Republican filibuster. Obama's health care push is
hitting a rough patch because moderates in his own party are
skittish about the price tag and tax increases. The Congressional
Budget Office
determined that none of the Democratic bills do anything to
rein in costs -- the primary rationale for his health care drive.
And the Mayo Clinic, which Obama has routinely praised as a model
for the health care system, has
blasted the House legislation. Yet Obama wants to rush
legislation through so he has a victory going into an election
year.
In fact, as CNN reported,
"The Senate Democratic leadership and the White House are putting
heavy pressure on the Finance Committee to adopt its health care
plan before the president speaks to the nation (on Wednesday)."
So in other words, Obama is trying to pressure the Finance
Committee not to write the best legislation its members can, not
to reach a bipartisan compromise, but to pass whatever bill they
can before he goes in front of the television cameras to give a
prime-time news conference.
