Joe Conason: Why Boehner is angry -- and Republicans should worry

[babylonsister]

Monday, Mar 22, 2010 08:23 EDT
Why Boehner is angry -- and Republicans should worry
Joe Conason

Passage may clear away the propaganda and let voters understand healthcare reform -- a scary prospect


What is the reward for acting with courage and principle, confronting the worst slurs, threats of violence, waves of falsehood, major monied interests, and widespread predictions of electoral defeat? As President Obama said in his remarks to the House Democrats on the eve of their vote for healthcare reform, the only certain compensation for doing what is right will be history’s judgment. Yet perhaps all the forecasts of doom will prove wrong -- as they so often do in Washington -- and voters will honor lawmakers who finally stood up for the core values of their party.

A few days before Sunday night's vote, Dan Balz noted in the Washington Post that the electorate sounds even angrier at Congress than usual -- a threatening portent for incumbents in November. Even in that poll, however, the lowest status was reserved not for the Democratic congressional leadership, whose numbers have indeed dropped, but for the Republican leaders.

No doubt John Boehner is well aware of that public contempt. Watching the minority leader speak on the House floor, pretending to be a populist demagogue rather than a corporate stooge, his anger seemed less provoked by the specifics of the healthcare legislation than with its likely political impact. If he feels so confident that the people will massively repudiate this bill in the midterm election -- and thus make him speaker --why was he so furious? Why did the bill’s imminent passage turn his usual orangey-tan complexion almost incandescent red with rage?

The answer could be found in the subtext of Boehner’s speech, which did not dwell on the bill’s specific provisions, beyond its alleged expense. He knows that arguing the bill’s specific provisions is very dangerous to his party, because so many of them are quite popular and the public will hold Republicans in disrepute for opposing them.

An informed public was always the ultimate peril for the Republicans in this process, so distorted during the past year by wild propaganda about death panels, government takeovers, and the entire mythology of the Obama administration’s socialist-communist-Nazi-totalitarianism.

Creating those crazy expectations was a strategy that depended on the bill never passing. If and when people learn what is actually in the legislation, many of them will realize that they were misled, and will end up appreciating most of what the Democrats have passed, after all.

more...

http://www.salon.com/news/healthcare_reform/index.html?story=/opinion/conason/2010/03/22/frum

[Lifelong Protester]

1. Very interesting analysis

Please, there have to be a few independent voters out there who saw through this charade.

[KeepItReal]

2. Am informed public is the ultimate peril of Republicans in most policy debates

That's why they do their best to keep their base misinformed.

[grantcart]

3. Maxwell Smart "We were THIS CLOSE to giving him a Waterloo".

They could have shared the credit.

Now they are the party of mean taking away people's health care, yep that's going to sell well.

Because this bill is so business friendly they can't even come up with an alternative.

Screwed.

[Solomon]

6. My biggest fear from the very beginning of Obama's

presidency has been that the republicans would cooperate with Obama and take all the credit for everything. That would have been smart thinking. In November they could run on saving us from disaster and righting the ship.

But Noooooooo, their emotions trumped their brains. Trapped into saying "No" even to what's good for the country.

[beac]

9. They tried to give Obama a Waterloo and he ended up giving them a swirly.

:)

I'm not 100% happy with the bill, but I am OVERJOYED at how miserable the GOP is today. :bounce:

[maxsolomon]

4. on MTP yesterday, Boehner said

"the american people are scared to death of this bill" - because he & his masters Ailes and Murdoch made sure of that. as ye sow, so ye shall reap.

[butterfly77]

5. And when he says that..

and all of his co-horts. I say what American people are you talking about..

[polichick]

10. He's projecting - it's Boner and his ilk who are scared to death. nt

[Dappleganger]

7. That's what happens you insist on living in the past...

their entire party has changed and they don't even get it. All the reasonable politicians retired/quit because they were tired of fighting with the crazies.

[snot]

8. I hope he's right, but remember, Repubs are not "reality-based."

[flpoljunkie]

11. Boehner himself seemed less than serious, perhaps even amused with his 'populist demagogue' pretense

It was, all in all, a bizarre to behold.

[Cha]

12. Thank you, Joe Conason &

babylonsister!