"1) It's a good bet that conservatives are over-optimistic about November - by then the economy will have improved and the immediate goodies in the healthcare bill will be reaching key voting blocs."

I really don't see how the economy is going to turn around by November. How can it? Why should it? We are in a downward spiral where we continue to shed jobs, which cuts taxes going into state budgets, which now leads to state workers being laid off.

I don't see this economy turning around for the average person for years if ever. IMHO we are new reaping the harvest that was sewed by decades of deregulation, off shoring of jobs, tax cuts to the rich, and the concentration of most of the countries wealth in the hands of a few. It took us decades to make this mess and it will probably take us decades to get out of it.

"So today's defeat for free-market economics and Republican values is a huge win for the conservative entertainment industry."

The author is right free-market economics have been defeated. We are now forced to buy defective products from private, for profit companies. Yea go Democrats...

This is what passes for "conservative" intelligence!

I never thought I'd read 'this' fellow Canadian on CD.
(and find some agreement)

"immediate goodies in the healthcare bill [that] will be reaching key voting blocks." Hmmmm? I must have missed that part. If expanded Medicaid and more community clinics ever actually materialize, I doubt that will translate into significant Democratic votes. For the middle class, this bill does nothing but impose a mandate that will be regarded as loathesome, once it is fully grasped. Read the accompanying Chris Hedges column for an assessment of how well the Massachusetts model has worked out.

I'm curious as to why the Common Dreams editors saw fit to include Frum's thoughts. Is it because he likes to try to position himself in opposition to the right's yahoo contingent? That's been his self-marketing strategy for a couple of decades now. Many years ago, he did a hit on Pat Buchanan in The American Spectator. I promise you that the left has a lot more in common now with Buchanan than with this little neocon twerp. I mean, for God's sake -- this guy has written a book entitled "The End of Evil." And we're supposed to spend our time reading his thoughts on health care?

That's an understatement, Mr. Frum. (LOL)

"Waterloo, Waterloo.
Where will you,
meet your Waterloo.
Every puppy has its day,
everybody has to pay.
Everybody has to meet his Waterloo."

The Republican Party will become a casualty, if it fails to change. They grow smaller and more vitriolic daily.

I'm wondering who AFrum is spinning for and what the intended purposes of the statement is -- and who it's directed towards. I'm not about to just accept it for it's face value. What is behind it?

FRUM: "So today's defeat for free-market economics and Republican values is a huge win for the conservative entertainment industry."

The "free market" in the US is mostly unfree, controlled by huge corporations.

Limbaugh, Beck et al aren't "conservative". They're rightwing.

Try our New Pledge:

...One Nation, under Medicare, with freedom and healthcare for all.

David Frum is a lying puss coward who's right almost as often as Kristol.

Here's the real deal: the 'good' parts of this piece of shit bill don't even kick in until 2014 - and any American who thinks any of said 'good' parts will still be alive in 4 years is living in FantasyAmerica where history never happened.

Funny - you'd think R-nuts like Frum would be happy that, for the first time in America, it's actually, officially illegal to be poor.

"You will pay penalties if you cannot afford to buy health insurance from a private Corporation well-known for it's massive corruption and heartlessness." http://tinyurl.com/yfgg9lt

How the Illegally Poor will pay penalties for not affording health insurance without money will be fixed, according to experts like Paul Krugman, in just a generation or two. So, you know, just hang in there a few more decades, okay?

Maybe the R-nuts are just smart enough not to celebrate the criminalization of being poor in public...

If I were an insurance company I might hire someone for some 'after-sales' selling to convince people that they got this really great product and should not even think about 'looking for a refund'.

Or I might worry about the right fringe getting too frisky and interfering with carefully crafted strategies and propaganda campaigns designed to box people's thinking into the most advantageous frames.

Another possibility is to work to not let the Democrats get too badly burned after they did their masters bidding and passed this monster -- and be open to doing their bidding again. ('Heckuva job, Brownie').

One thing an insurance comany should not do is run around shouting "We FOOLED you, suckers -- we won!".

I don't know -- just a few of the thoughts passing by in this stream of public relations sewage.

This is just possibly the most self-contradicting thing I've read from the Right in years, and that's saying something.

First Frum says it's a Repub "Waterloo", then he quite accuratly points out that the bill itself is essentially Republican politics and rewards Republican cronies. Then he says the Repubs didn't try to "deal" or "compromise" Huh? They spend that last 15 months in committee meetings with the spineless Dems (Max Baucus, et al) hacking the original, somewhat worthy proposals to pieces and reassembling them into the current Frankenstein monster.

And this means the Repubs "lost everything"?

And to top it all David Frum, author of the phrase "Axis of Evil", wants to scold fellow Repubs about "hysterical accusations, psuedoinformation and overheated talk"?

Priceless!

David Frum has his soapbox.

All he needs now is the noose around his neck...

Jon Stewart on Glenn Beck's blackboard rules:

"If you subscribe to an idea you also subscribe to that idea's ideology and to every possible negative consequence that that ideology remotely implies when you carry it to absurd extremes. For instance, progressives, if you believe in a minimum safety net for the nation's neediest you believe in total and absolute government control. So, if you believe that faith provides a strong moral tent post for a nation's foundation THAT can only lead to totalitarian theocracy."

This Frum piece is actually a pretty important article at this point in Amurkan right-wing history. This is because it clearly identifies a WEDGE that the Left can use to further divide corporate Republicans & big spending neo-conservatives from the rest of the Fox/rant radio frenzied, right-wing rabble in order to marginalize said rabble--even as their own race & age demographics are increasingly boxing them into a demographic corner.

History is handing authentic progressives a number of golden opportunities right now that will not come again for decades. But it's up to us to seize those opportunities and use them to build a broad Left coalition that will render the current DLC Dim Party electorally moot, co-opt as much of the left-wing of it as possible, marginalize right-wing rabble and alienate everyone in the country except their own numerically small ilk from corporate Republican uber-parasites--especially the Big War/Big Homeland Police State spending neo-cons.

Frum is right about the still nascent split between the corporate Republicans and the media frenzied right-wingers who used to worship them and now look at them bewildered & askance, but he very much downplays the backlash against the Democratic Party that is coming this November which is based on many more issues than just the health care deform.

Obama has spent too much on prolonging the oil/terror wars; coddled the big bank bonus babies leading directly to tens of billions of dollars in State budgetary shortfalls, draconian State program cuts and massive firings of teachers and other government workers that have just begun; failed to re-regulate the banks or derivatives and is set to hand the corrupt Fed MORE power instead of creating true oversight on the Fed (or getting rid of it); and created NEGATIVE net new private sector jobs.

If Obama and his fellow DLC suits fail to deal with the job issue, first and foremost, they will get handed all their hats in 2012. Then it will be on the Republicans whose only ideologically possible job program will be a full-scale military draft to extend the wars into Iran, since Bush proved that tax cuts for the rich during war-time do nothing to create significant numbers of new jobs, especially as long as the "free trade" regime (held as sacrosanct by both Corporate Parties) remains in place.

This long-term real economy/jobs decline will lead to a ping-pong game between both major Parties--perhaps for the next 12 to 16 years (roughly as long as the first Great Depression lasted)--while the country further deteriorates and becomes more economically, politically and socially volatile. The only victors will be the corporations who fund both Parties' political campaigns.

The ONLY thing that can re-stabilize this situation is the creation of strong and united new authentic progressive movement and/or Third Party that obviates the need for the failed Democratic Party. We can offer the nation a massive Green New Deal to rebuild a green domestic manufacturing jobs base to make us competitive with the EU, China, Japan and India who are already leaving us behind on this. We progressives have a potential coalition of roughly 90 million eligible American voters available to us if we do the work necessary to organize them by simultaneously educating them and campaigning for their support. That is over 30 million more votes than either the Democratic Party or the GOP can put together. The more we organize, the more alienated Democrats we can add to our numbers until we can put together a coalition that will last for 35 to 40 years.

My fellow Americans, now is the time for you to join me in writing all the progressive organizations that we know of to request that their leaders communicate with the other progressive organizations (excluding Democratic Party support groups) to convene a national progressive leadership summit for the purposes of organizing a new umbrella movement to unite all the progressive tribes with the ultimate goal of creating a new, baggage free, united progressive movement and/or a national Progressive Unity Party. Then we can begin to reach out to the 80 million mostly poor and minority voters abandoned by both the DLC and GOP decades ago, and after that, appeal to alienated Democrats who are sick of DLC dirty deals. The time to strike is now! SOLIDARITY! LIBERTY! SUSTAINABILITY! SOCIAL JUSTICE! ECONOMIC FAIRNESS! PARTICIPATION FOR ALL IN THE COMMON GOOD!

I wonder if Frum still keeps his free Canadian Healthcare?

If he does, it should be revoked..they guy is a scumbag, and the original "Asskiss of Evil"

Am I the only one who can't get the image of Boner the orange Oompa Loompa and Demint grooving to ABBA's "Waterloo" out of my head? It's likely the only time they've danced in their entire lives.

- Q. Why are Baptists forbidden from having sex standing up? A. Because someone might think they were dancing.

Keep it classy Republicans!

This article exposes the whole dynamic in washington of how 'winning' is far more important than issues or serving the people. He talks at the beginning about what a generational tragedy it is that the republicans were defeated, and then immediately recounts how the adopted plan is built on traditional republican ideas! The same dynamic holds for the democrats, for as they were all crowing about their 'victory' the only thing they won was the vote count-- their plan is just like the republican plan, and in either case what the people want and need was a remote second place consideration. Even more revealing is when Frum ticks off all the (few) good things in the bill and how the congress and the president won't overturn them, and what a defeat that is for conservatives. It doesn't matter that the things are GOOD-- only that they were passed by the "others". In other words, their ONLY goal is to have more power. They toy with the country like it's a schoolyard game.

This is the beginning of the end of the GOP.

They have aligned themselves with the worst lunatic fringe, violent and racist elements of American society, and will now be forever tarred with the same brush.

The racist, lying Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity are their new leaders, who are only interested in lining their own pockets, and will lead them to the political wilderness forever.

It's heartening to see so many of the commentaters here see Frums rantings for the nonesense that they are. The Republicans did not lose here they won a resounding victory.

Everything they wanted out is out and everthing they wanted in is in. Plus they get to say they opposed it and thus hang what is essentially a a Republican bill around the necks of the Democrats

Best part: They ain't done saying NO yet!

"When Rush Limbaugh said that he wanted President Obama to fail, he was intelligently explaining his own interests. What he omitted to say - but what is equally true - is that he also wants Republicans to fail."

"Why Conservatives Can't Govern

By Alan Wolfe

Search hard enough and you might find a pundit who believes what George W. Bush believes, which is that history will redeem his administration. But from just about everyone else, on the right as vehemently as on the left, the verdict has been rolling in: This administration, if not the worst in American history, will soon find itself in the final four. Even those who appeal to history's ultimate judgment halfheartedly acknowledge as much. One seeks tomorrow's vindication only in the context of today's dismal performance.

About the only failure more pronounced than the president's has been the graft-filled plunder of GOP lawmakers--at least according to opinion polls, which in May gave the GOP-controlled Congress favorability ratings in the low 20s, about 10 points lower than the president's. This does not necessarily translate into electoral Armageddon; redistricting and other incumbency-protection devices help protect against that. But even if many commentators think that Republicans may retain control over Congress, very few think they should.

Eager to salvage conservatism from the wreckage of conservative rule, right-wing pundits are furiously blaming right-wing politicians for failing to adhere to right-wing convictions. Libertarians such as Bruce Bartlett fret that under Republican control, government has not shrunk, as conservatives prescribe, but has grown. Insiders like Peggy Noonan complain that Republicans have become--well, insiders; they are too focused on retaining power and too disconnected from the base whose anger pushed them into power. Idealistic younger conservatives bewail the care and feeding of the K Street beast. Paleocons Pat Buchanan and Robert Novak blame neocons William Kristol and Charles Krauthammer for the debacle that is Iraq. Through all these laments there pulsates a sense of desperation: A conservative president and an even more conservative Congress must be repudiated to enable genuine conservatism to survive. Sure, the Bush administration has failed, all these voices proclaim. But that is because Bush and his Republican allies in Congress borrowed big government and foreign-policy idealism from the left. The ideas of Woodrow Wilson and John Maynard Keynes, from their point of view, have always been flawed. George W. Bush and Tom DeLay just prove it one more time.

Conservative dissidents seem to have done an admirable job of persuading each other of the truth of their claims. Of course, many of these dissidents extolled the president's conservative leadership when he was riding high in the polls. But the real flaw in their argument is akin to that of Trotskyites who, when confronted with the failures of communism in Cuba, China and the Soviet Union, would claim that real communism had never been tried. If leaders consistently depart in disastrous ways from their underlying political ideology, there comes a point where one has to stop just blaming the leaders and start questioning the ideology.

The collapse of the Bush presidency, in other words, is not just due to Bush's incompetence (although his administration has been incompetent beyond belief). Nor is it a response to the president's principled lack of intellectual curiosity and pitbull refusal to admit mistakes (although those character flaws are certainly real enough). And the orgy of bribery and special-interest dispensation in Congress is not the result of Tom DeLay's ruthlessness, as impressive a bully as he was. This conservative presidency and Congress imploded, not despite their conservatism, but because of it.

Contemporary conservatism is first and foremost about shrinking the size and reach of the federal government. This mission, let us be clear, is an ideological one. It does not emerge out of an attempt to solve real-world problems, such as managing increasing deficits or finding revenue to pay for entitlements built into the structure of federal legislation. It stems, rather, from the libertarian conviction, repeated endlessly by George W. Bush, that the money government collects in order to carry out its business properly belongs to the people themselves. One thought, and one thought only, guided Bush and his Republican allies since they assumed power in the wake of Bush vs. Gore: taxes must be cut, and the more they are cut--especially in ways benefiting the rich--the better.

But like all politicians, conservatives, once in office, find themselves under constant pressure from constituents to use government to improve their lives. This puts conservatives in the awkward position of managing government agencies whose missions--indeed, whose very existence--they believe to be illegitimate. Contemporary conservatism is a walking contradiction. Unable to shrink government but unwilling to improve it, conservatives attempt to split the difference, expanding government for political gain, but always in ways that validate their disregard for the very thing they are expanding. The end result is not just bigger government, but more incompetent government."
continued)

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2006/0607.wolfe.html