Prospects for Obamacare

Yes, we know that Speaker Pelosi has said that the Democrats will pass the bill no matter what, and she is the goddess of certitude, the Mother of all Certitude, so she must have some notion up her sleeve of how, in the event of a “Scott heard ‘round the world,” she is going to force a significant number of leftist House members, who said they would never support a bill without the public option, and twelve anti-abortion House members, who said they would never support a bill without the Stupak amendment, to vote for the Senate version of the bill which lacks both the public option and the Stupak amendment, and send it to Obama’s desk to be signed into law—this week.

Now of course I don’t know, but if Brown wins, I don’t see how Pelosi’s scenario can happen unless all the above mentioned representatives vote for something they have said they absolutely would not vote for. And that just doesn’t seem likely. So, while I’ve been very relucant to make predictions in this matter, I’m going to say this: if Brown wins, I don’t see how the bill can be passed. I think a Brown win would be every bit as decisive and historic as the more sanguine Obamacare opponents have been saying it would be.

Update: Right in line with the above, I see at The New Republic Jonathan Chait doing a stout imitation of the Mother of all Certitude and declaring that the House members can be pushed into passing the Senate bill, and he is answered by a Greek chorus of commenters telling him that he is in a state of tragic delusion and it ain’t gonna happen.

And (again on the condition of a Brown victory) perhaps the best epitaph to the health care bill (and, we pray, by extension, and ultimately, to Obamism as a whole) will indeed be expressed in terms of Greek tragedy, as unfolded by Irving Babbitt in his conservative classic Democracy and Leadership:

Man’s expansive conceit, as the Greeks saw, produces insolent excess (hybris) and this begets blindness (ate) which in turn brings on Nemesis. Expansive conceit tempered by Nemesis—this is a definition of an essential aspect of human nature that finds considerable support in the facts of history. Man never rushes forward so confidently, it would sometimes seem, as when he is on the very brink of the abyss.

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Rose writes:

I find myself wondering if there aren’t Democrats in the House who have had second and third thoughts about the Pelosi/Reid 2,000 page plan, who will use the special election in Massachusetts as an excuse to back away from it. It was one thing to support this plan months ago when Democrats could tell each other than only cranks, racists and other scum opposed it. However, that dog no longer hunts. There’s far too many ordinary people now on record opposing it, and even though I firmly believe that the Obama White House would gladly lose the Congress in order to get government control of health care, there surely are many Congressional Representatives who are less sanguine about that prospect.

Even if Brown loses (a distinct possibility, in the era of “provisional ballots,” i.e. box-stuffers), the sheer intensity of the opposition to Coakley has caught the Democrat machine off guard. The President’s condescending, rather snotty remarks about Brown’s pickup truck surely did not help, and we can be sure that clips of him saying those things will be played in Michigan and other places where pickup trucks are built later this year. So this campaign has really poked a hole in the “Obamacare Is Inevitable” propaganda line, and it seems likely that there are Democratic Congressional Reps taking notes.

It would be interesting to be a fly on the wall in the next meeting Pelosi has with her House minions, wouldn’t it?

Paul K. writes:

You quote Irving Babbitt explaining the Nemesis brought on by hubris: “Man never rushes forward so confidently, it would sometimes seem, as when he is on the very brink of the abyss.”

But in this instance, we might say: “Man never rushes forward so confidently, it would sometimes seem, as when he is on the precipice of achievement that’s eluded Congresses, presidents for generations—an achievement that will touch the lives of nearly every American.”

Ferg writes:

You say:

Now of course I don’t know, but if Brown wins, I don’t see how Pelosi’s scenario can happen unless all the above mentioned representatives vote for something they have said they absolutely would not vote for.

It is called deal making, log rolling, vote trading, bribery. Remember the Clinton Crime Bill? It was a sure thing, then it failed? Then after some persuasion, all the Dems who had voted against it turned around and voted for it, including one Rep. who was an NRA board member and resigned his NRA board seat and membership publicly on the floor of the House?

Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 19, 2010 08:00 AM | Send