David Brooks takes the side of those who see the Democrats as doomed. He sees popular opinion as largely against what the Obama administration is trying to do.
Of course, popular opinion is in the eye of the beholder and Beholder Brooks appears to be licking his lips -- gloating over the Democrats' loss.
Instead of building a new majority, the Democrats have set off a distrust insurrection (which is not the same as a conservative insurrection). Republicans are enraged. Independents are furious. Democrats are disheartened. Health care reform is brutally unpopular. Even voters in Massachusetts decided it was time to send a message.
Because it came as a surprise, Massachusetts' election of Scott Brown has taken on more importance than it should.
Howard Dean's comments on it yesterday were interesting: investigations/polls apparently show that Brown's win was handed to him by angry progressives. He told Bill Press yesterday:
First, in order to understand what you ought to do, you ought to understand what happened. Democracy for American and a couple of other progressive organizations -- I think MoveOn was one and the Congressional Progressive Caucus, or something like that -- did an overnight poll in Massachusetts. They found that 18% of Scott Brown's vote were Obama voters. Of those, 80% prefer a public option. By 3 to 2, they thought the bill didn't go far enough. Then they polled Obama voters who didn't vote in the election. 6 to 1 were for the public option. 80% though the bill didn't go far enough.
So my argument is that this is not a right-wing revolution. This was a revolution against Washington, against people who said they were going to change things. What they've seen for a year is health insurance companies writing the health care bill. They've seen Wall Street get minimal slaps on the wrist. They haven't seen the kind of change they hoped to see.
I don't lay this at the feet of President Obama. And the Republicans have done nothing. But we let them get away with it.
We're just not tough enough.
George Bush? Had he been president and wanted a health care bill, he would have had it on his desk in six months because it wouldn't have run through reconciliation. It would have been the bill he wanted. Instead they diddled around with folks like Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman who had no intention of passing a comprehensive health care bill. I don't really mean it the way it's going to come out because I like Martha Coakley and I think she would have been a great senator, but in some ways we never really had 60 senators to begin with. And if we hadn't thought we did, we would have been much more realistic about how to get the bill done.
Paul Krugman has a more energizing reaction to recent events than David Brooks.
...Politics is supposed to be about achieving something more than your own re-election. America desperately needs health care reform; it would be a betrayal of trust if Democrats fold simply because they hope (wrongly) that this would slightly reduce their losses in the midterm elections.
Now, part of Democrats’ problem since Tuesday’s special election has been that they have been waiting in vain for leadership from the White House, where Mr. Obama has conspicuously failed to rise to the occasion.
But members of Congress, who were sent to Washington to serve the public, don’t have the right to hide behind the president’s passivity.
Bear in mind that the horrors of health insurance — outrageous premiums, coverage denied to those who need it most and dropped when you actually get sick — will get only worse if reform fails, and insurance companies know that they’re off the hook. And voters will blame politicians who, when they had a chance to do something, made excuses instead.
Ladies and gentlemen, the nation is waiting. Stop whining, and do what needs to be done.
