The Connection Between ObamaCare and Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson once defined a second marriage as "the triumph of hope over experience". That sounds an awful lot like the pathology that Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) is employing in his rationale for why Republican efforts to repeal ObamaCare may be a good thing for Democrats. Appearing on CNN's "Parker Spitzer", Weiner offered the following gem:
This gives us an opportunity to make the case on health care, maybe make it a little bit better than we did the last time.
By now, we've all heard plenty of conservatives trot out the old "insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results" trope. It's true enough, but accept Weiner's argument on its own terms for a minute. Are Democrats such universally bad communicators that two years after this plan was conceived and nearly a year after it was passed into law they still don't have a palatable explanation for it?
On the plus side, the more this culture of denial takes hold in the Democratic caucus, the easier it will be for the GOP to push ahead. My only concern is that the repeal agenda be maintained at the same time that congressional Republicans are tackling other issues, as a party devoted solely to defanging a piece of existing legislation -- no matter how bad -- runs the risk of looking unserious about governing.
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Jun '10
Re: The Connection Between ObamaCare and Samuel Johnson
Translation: The American people are just too stupid to understand the brilliance of our plan. Maybe if we just repeat it enough times, you know, verrrrry slowly, they'll eventually catch on.
Dec '10
Re: The Connection Between ObamaCare and Samuel Johnson
Dr. Johnson also observed, "The prospect of being hanged in a fortnight concentrates one's mind wonderfully." As the realities of dealing with a GOP House majority and facing a re-election campaign begin to bite, I bet Obama will have reason to reflect on that bit of wisdom.
Jan '11
Re: The Connection Between ObamaCare and Samuel Johnson
Let's put two statements together:
Maybe the reason you didn't do such a good job defending the bill is that you didn't know what was in it the first time. Then again, do we really know more about it this time?
Re: The Connection Between ObamaCare and Samuel Johnson
Troy: I think we have to understand that these leftists like Weiner are relentless ideologues and they are never going to stop pushing their agenda even when the public initially or even subsequently rejects it. They'll just regroup and try again. They never accept defeat either of a battle or of an idea. Keynesian economics isn't discredited, it just isn't understood or hasn't been tried in a pure enough form -- e.g., the insane comments that Obama's stimulus wasn't big enough.
I worry that because they're so relentless you can never rest. They were able to turn Reagan's 8 years of extraordinary economic growth w/o inflation and demonize it on class warfare terms, by distorting it and going after it over and over. Now, they own the narrative again, the historical record be damned -- even though on the practical front we were able to eek out 2 more years of the Bush rates.
What concerns me is that when this all plays out, the GOP could end up compromising with Obama, thus partially embracing his structural perversion of health care. Once we compromise w/ him legislatively we co-own it: horrifying!