The American Spectator

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Allies No More

By Doug Bandow on 8.18.09 @ 8:36AM

House Minority Leader Rep. John Boehner has gone after the pharmaceutical lobby PhRMA for signing onto the Obama health care takeover plan.  Wrote Boehner to PhRMA head (and former Republican congressman) Billy Tauzin:

Appeasement rarely works as a conflict resolution strategy.  This is as true in the arena of policymaking as it is in schoolyards across
America.  When a bully asks for your lunch money, you may have no choice but to fork it over.  But cutting a deal with the bully is a
different story, particularly if the "deal" means helping him steal others' money as the price of protecting your own. 

The simple truth is, two wrongs don't make a right.  And the short-sighted health care deal PhRMA struck with the Obama Administration at your urging provides confirmation of this time-tested maxim on an epic and tragic scale. 

The blood is starting to flow.  When the Democratic betrayal comes--and betrayal is inevitable--the pharmaceutical industry might find few friends left on the GOP side of the aisle willing to come to its aid.