Last summer, during a conference call with conservative activists, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) said that if the Republican Party was able to defeat Democratic efforts to pass a comprehensive health care bill, it would “break” President Obama and be “his Waterloo.” Last night, former Bush speechwriter David Frum posted a note on his website addressing his fellow conservatives on the consequences of the Democrats successfully passing a health care bill. He castigated them for refusing to deal with Democrats throughout the process — especially when the final health care bill incorporated many ideas from the Republican Party — and said that a “huge part of the blame for [yesterday's] disaster attaches to conservatives and Republicans ourselves.” He concludes that “it’s Waterloo all right: ours”:
A huge part of the blame for today’s disaster attaches to conservatives and Republicans ourselves. At the beginning of this process we made a strategic decision: unlike, say, Democrats in 2001 when President Bush proposed his first tax cut, we would make no deal with the administration. No negotiations, no compromise, nothing. We were going for all the marbles. This would be Obama’s Waterloo – just as healthcare was Clinton’s in 1994. [...]
This time, when we went for all the marbles, we ended with none. [...]
So today’s defeat for free-market economics and Republican values is a huge win for the conservative entertainment industry. Their listeners and viewers will now be even more enraged, even more frustrated, even more disappointed in everybody except the responsibility-free talkers on television and radio. For them, it’s mission accomplished. For the cause they purport to represent, it’s Waterloo all right: ours.
Frum also writes that Rush Limbaugh “wants Republicans to fail.”
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