Bill Kristol on enjoying the festivities in Copenhagen: “Hugo Chavez, Ahmadinejad giving anti-American speeches, huge applause from the delegates, snowing during this global warming conference. And I’m glad that it has done limited damage to the U.S. economy.” Mara Liasson (emboldened perhaps by the “Free Mara!” campaign) agrees: “I think, obviously, it was a disappointment for environmentalists who wanted something binding and wanted more firm targets, but I think what this means is that a very small step has been taken, and now we’ll see if the Senate will pass this treaty.”
In the rush to pass hugely unpopular and controversial legislation, errors are made: “The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) corrected its estimate of the Senate health bill’s costs on Sunday, saying it would reduce deficits slightly less than they’d predicted.”
The bill was so awful the payoffs had to be very high: “Nelson’s might be the most blatant – a deal carved out for a single state, a permanent exemption from the state share of Medicaid expansion for Nebraska, meaning federal taxpayers have to kick in an additional $45 million in the first decade. But another Democratic holdout, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), took credit for $10 billion in new funding for community health centers, while denying it was a “sweetheart deal.”
Megan McArdle: “Democrats are on a political suicide mission; I’m not a particularly accurate prognosticator, but I think this makes it very likely that in 2010 they will lost several seats in the Senate–enough to make it damn hard to pass any more of their signature legislation–and will lose the House outright. In the case of the House, you can attribute it to the fact that the leadership has safe seats. But three out of four of the Democrats on the podium today are in serious danger of losing their seats. No bill this large has ever before passed on a straight party-line vote, or even anything close to a straight party-line vote. No bill this unpopular has ever before passed on a straight party-line vote.”
When do we get “change“? “The Senate Majority Leader has decided that the last few days before Christmas are the opportune moment for a narrow majority of Democrats to stuff ObamaCare through the Senate to meet an arbitrary White House deadline. Barring some extraordinary reversal, it now seems as if they have the 60 votes they need to jump off this cliff, with one-seventh of the economy in tow. Mr. Obama promised a new era of transparent good government, yet on Saturday morning Mr. Reid threw out the 2,100-page bill that the world’s greatest deliberative body spent just 17 days debating and replaced it with a new ‘manager’s amendment’ that was stapled together in covert partisan negotiations.” Well, voters may see their chance on Election Day 2010.
Harry Reid’s precarious position with Nevada voters may get worse. Even the new Newsweek has figured out that much: “As the approval ratings of both Obama and Congress fall, Nevada’s political dynamics spell trouble for many incumbent Democrats. When you’re the majority leader, that’s seriously bad news. ‘Any politician who gets into a leadership role like that has a tough time because they have to balance the needs of their leadership role against their representation of a state,’ [Scott] Rasmussen says. Reid’s job as leader requires him to be a strict partisan even though he comes from a purple state.”
To no one’s surprise, James Webb falls in line with ObamaCare despite all his supposed “disappointment with some sections of the bill.” His Virginia constituents, who elected Bob McDonnell and are running against the Obama agenda by twenty points, are no doubt even more disappointed. That’s what the 2012 election will be all about.
Eric Cantor explains where health care will be decided: “Cantor predicts that abortion would be the key issue in the House’s debate of the Senate’s bill. Pro-life Rep. Bart Stupak (D., Mich.) ‘has outlined very clear language’ on abortion and ‘has made it clear that if it’s not included then he will vote against the bill,’ he says. ‘. . It’s unfathomable to think that pro-life Democrats would go for the Senate version. They know that the Senate’s bill is a 30-year record-breaking move to allow taxpayer dollars to fund abortion. I can’t imagine any of them supporting it.” We’ll see.
We are still “bearing witness,” I suppose: “Iran’s opposition on Sunday seized upon the death of one of the Islamic republic’s founding fathers — a revered ayatollah who was also a fierce critic of the nation’s leadership — to take to the streets in mourning. Fearing that mourners could quickly turn into antigovernment protesters, Iranian authorities tightened security across the country.”
