Waterloo..?

Sorry, Frum's 'theory' doesn't wash.  I suppose he figures rape victims were asking for it, too.

The more I re-read that line the funnier it gets.

Somehow not preventing passage of a bill, despite every Republican voting against it, is a 'crushing legislative defeat'.  Frum is even more clueless than I realized at first.

A somewhat different take on the subject.

This article was plastered all over the liberal media. I've seen it at least a half-dozen times all ready,I find it amusing how liberals say "Don't listen to what Rush, Hannity and the other eight-wing mouth pieces say". Yet they are all "lookie here" when they get a snippet they like. So I guess when a bill is passed with arm twisting, bribery, and other hooks and gimmicks, that makes it good? This just proves Chicago Politics is now the national modus operandi of the day.

Well, you failed to gather ennough DINO to your side to win the vote.

Simple as that.

It was the DINO's that suffered the 'crushing defeat'.  The Republicans had no influence or say in the matter.

I have a feeling their no votes will wear well.

A libreral is a liberal. There is no such thing as a DINO. The last one was a former VP candidate that they expelled from the party in the next cycle. I rememver when each party had two wings the liberal wing of the republicans and democrats, and the conservative wing of the democrats and republicans. Now we have liberals in the republican party and two of them were elected to president. Both named Bush. We also have the conservative wing of the republican party.

On the democrat side you have the liberal wing of the democrat party and the far left loony wing of the democrat party. Since the democrats got rid of all the conservatives there is no common ground to build on. If you are sane and over thirty you are a conservative, if you are insane and a danger to yourself and society you are in the democrat party. I do find it interesting that 34 democrats were allowed to vote against the bill. Kind of reminds me of Saddam Insane who after winning with 100% of the vote gave in to the critics and the next election ordered 10% to vote against him so show it was a fair election. I find it strange that with a majority of democrats in the Senate, House and the White House it took over a year to get this passed, and only after bribs were paid, arms were twisted, and threats were made. If this was such a good piece of legislation why would they need to do all the underhanded stuff? If it was truly the right thing to do why did the majority of the American people go against it? We have a situation here where we now have taxation without representation. Our representitives went agianst the wishes of the people that put them in office. Looks like it is time to hire a new batch of representitives or the next step will be a revolution that will end this republic.

We did not fail, my friend, we were forced to accept things we had no power to change. What will result from this will be bloody and messy for your side. (politically speaking) Your side had promised more than it can deliver and that is always hazadarous to the politician.

I have to agree with Diawa.  I do not know why Frum is making an ass of himself (perhaps he is just another politician who thinks selling your soul for a crumb is worth the trade).  I sincerely believe that the rrepublicans won the most here.  Over the last 8 years (pre-messiah), they had become no better than Democrat Lites, but this showed me that we still have 2 parties and that there is a difference. 

Not enough for me to sing kumbaya, but enough to not hold my nose when I vote for a republican in november (funny thing is, I probably wont be voting for any republicans in november as neither of my senators are up for re-election, and the house member has already gotten a pledge from me to NOT vote for him.).

Paladin, Lieberman is no DINO.  But he something even rarer.  An honest Democrat.

Or.. you know. Maybe he genuinely believe that the Republicans have gone too far in their rethorics, and they should de-fanatise themselves?

... wait, do you actually believe that these 34 democrats voted against because the democrat leadership wanted to show some dissent?

I am left without words. Oh no, I have some:

DO YOU LIVE IN YOUR OWN FANTASY?

No they want these Democrats to hold on to their precarious seats in November.

Hey Doc, we can be proud of the Virginia legislature's bipartisan act of opposing the new tax on Virginians in the guise of Health Care (IE. insurance)reform (as this bill does nothing to to reduce the cost of treatment). I saw an interview with Bob McDonald with Greta last night and I was quite proud of the the way he phased the whole thing. I'm sure any Democrat watching (not the progressive or socialists wing of the Democrats) would have been proud as well, that's how tactful he spoke. The voters made a good choice in him.

That would imply politicians (does not matter the party) have scrupples.  And as you know, being the cynic, I know they do not.

You know, the republicans could have run a lipstick pig (if Hillary was available) and it would have still won after the disaster that was Kaine.  But yes, I have great expectations for McDonnell.  But then I also voted for Allen 3 times as well.  The dirtiness of democrats knows no bounds.

Here is a new concept for you. HUMOR. It is obvious that they were 100 votes short a year ago or whenever the Senate passed this mess, and they passed with two or three extra in the House. WOW. If the bill was so good it would have passed with more than that and the republicans would have had a few sign on as well.

There 2 distinct possibilities, both of them are possible:

1) The bill wasn't as good as announced, which is why no GOP rep voted for it

2) The opposition to the bill has been mounted to irrational proportion on the street with some truths and lies (both of them). Because of that, the GOP representative could not make any compromise without antagonising their own voting base.

There is quite the possibility that's it's a little of both. The GOP have proven themselves to be intransigent at the end when came the final round of negociation. They thought that by making an absolute stand, they would win more political points that way than by getting more concessions out of Obama.

Time will tell if they were right, apparently.

I'm curious - just what 'concessions' do you think were on the table?

some republican proposals to eliminate medical fraud, reform medical malpractice liability, and eliminate special assistance to certain states, among others. But Republicans just came out and said "we won't accept any deal", hoping to sway the middle-grounders in their favor.

However, if the Republican leadership had taken these concession, and asked for "just a little more" to get their vote by taking in and out elements that they were the MOST against, they might have done a better reform.

The anti-abortions Dem. representatives got what they wanted out of Obama by being open to negociations and holding out until the end. They have not made an ideological claim to obstructism.

No, it is all 1.  Even nancy Pelosi said that much.  The Senate never intended it to become law.  They figured it would be mostly fixed in conference.  But the election of Scott Brown killed that chance.  So instead of passing a bill that anyone can trust, they passed one that no one can.

Actually no, they got it because they were the only ones that would change, and it was easier.  The democrats never included the republicans or listened to them.  The drive was always on the democrat side to make sure all of them voted for it.  They had the power and were determined to use it.  Stupak would have been tossed under the bus if they could have gotten some of the other 32 democrats to vote for it.  As it is, he was just a cheap lay (only $782k).

Come on. Obama banged his head and let the Republican discredit him in the past year trying to get compromises with the GOP. There wasn't any progress achieved either there. On the opposite, lies have been spreaded quite strongly against his reform.

Remember the "Slaughter solution"? this board was inflammed, saying that "Obama finally showed his true anti-democratic colour". It never actually passed. Everybody just jumped on yet another anti-Obama bandwagon.

I really don't know. It really seems to me the Republican base became more extremist in the past years, throwing just more senselss rethorics, crowding out the ones that actually made sense. there was many good ground to oppose Obama's reform, or at least modify it to make it acceptable to both parties. But some of the thrown rethorics made those kind of deal impossible for all parties involved.

Apparently, I read different papers than you.  What 'deal' were the Democrats offering?  None of those things made it into the bill.  Even the 'concessions' that were floated in the press were pure vapor, even if they'd been included (fund a study to see if a study of a pilot program is worth funding).  Kind of like the abortion-funding EO which will prove to be, in the immortal word of Ron Ziegler, 'inoperative'.

They got nothing 'out of Obama' but a fig leaf, a wet fart of an EO.  See above.

Apparently the political posturing of the Democrats is believable to you, but it's nothing more than that - posturing.

The bill sucks, and the more I read it the worse it gets.

Compromises, amendments, and substitutions were suggested, and most were not accepted. The ones that were accepted are the good parts of the bill that are front loaded to make the bill seem nicer than it is.

Here is a third idea, I know it will sound wild and crazy but maybe, just maybe some Representatives were following the wishes of their constituents, you may have heard of such people they are also known as voters. You see as a representative, in the House of Representatives they are bound by this wierd thing call a "Constitution", supposed to follow the wishes of the people that put them there to represent them. Its just a wild and crazy thought, feel free to ignore it like the Representatives that ignored their constituents. You see, it does not matter if the bill is right or wrong they are supposed to represent the majority of the constituents wishes. With over 80% not liking the bill and 52% of people polled the week of the vote in the House against it, there is no way it should have passed. Now we are stuck with a bill nobody likes, and needs to be fixed the day after it was signed into law.

Please list the things you think made sense that was in the bill.

I was at the Glenn Beck Revival tour yesterday. Judge Andrew Napolitano had an interesting observation. The Mustang Ranch in Nevada was taken over by the IRS for non-payment of taxes. The IRS bankrupted the place in less than a year. Think about this. The government could not sell hookers, and booze in a desert to truckers and make enough money to pay the tax bill but we are expected to believe that this same government can take over the entire health care system and do it better than the private sector while saving money and reducing costs.

Where?  Show me one time he tried.  Anyone!  He said a lot, but did not DO anything to include the republicans.  It is all a matter of public record.  I can say I want to save a million frogs!  But then I do nothing to save them, so how did I save them again?

The "slaughter solution" was just an procedural trick.  Nothing more.  it was a way for a democrat to go back to their district and say "I never voted for that abomination!" and be technically correct.  It was never meant to gain support from republicans.  it was a way for democrats to deceive their constituents.  It was dropped because they realized the public is not that stupid.

Well, taht supposes there was anything there to work with.  Clearly the bill is nothing the democrats wanted (except the nose in the door as many have already stated).  And clearly the democrats decided with their huge majorities they could go it alone (and so they did).  So the republicans are just stating the obvious.  Throw it out and start over - which is what they have been saying for the past 3 months now.  nothing new, and definitely nothing radical.  it is so bad, that even Pelosi does not know what is in it ("We will pass it to find out what is in it").

The bill is bad, of that there is almost universal agreement.  How the bill is fixed is the only area that is in disagreement.  The republicans want to throw it out and start over, the democrats figure the camels nose is in the door, so lets just squeeze some more in.  But then you have to wonder how they intend to "fix" what they do not even understand what they passed yet?  It would seem to me if you do not know what you have, it is better to start from a known place instead of modifying something you do not understand.

Cikomyr, FYI - Some clown copied your entire article over at Stir the pot.  No link, just copied and pasted it.

Doc, you mean Frum's article. Cikomyr did cite the author. I said in a previous comment, that I've seen this article in numerous places. Liberals are using it as "proof" of the correctness of their agenda.

Edit: Even Mumble had part of it on his blog when it came out. The left only has a problem with one of their own being critical of itself, the right is fair game. 

Is Stir the Pot another board, or a post on this board?

Anyway, as NC said, it's Frum's article. I never post anything without giving credit and a link to it's original.

I consider it all one board.

But he not only copied the Frum Article, but your heading and by line as well.  Sorry, that is just not kosher in my book.  A link within the same website is a no brainer.