Conservative Health Care Woes

Jonathan Chait on the coming conservative freak-out
by blue aardvark Sat Feb 20, 2010
From The New Republic:

The Coming Conservative Health Care Freakout
You can imagine how this feels to conservatives. They've already run off the field, sprayed themselves with champagne and taunted the losing team's fans. And now the other team is saying the game is still on and they have a good chance to win. There may be nothing wrong at all with the process, but it's certainly going to feel like some kind of crime to the right-wing. The Democrats may not win, but I'm pretty sure they're going to try. The conservative freakout is going to be something to behold.
And Paul Krugman adds this:
If this works out — I’d think the odds now are that it will, though it’s by no means a done deal — there will be endless debate about whether Anthem Blue Cross was wot did it. My sense is that a final push was always available, as long as the White House was willing to take a stand; Anthem may just have helped provide an occasion.
I think Krugman's correct. And Chait, too.
The Democrats are going to pass something. It's going to be less than it should have been, but better than nothing. And then what's going to happen?
The answer is the Republicans, especially the Tea Party types, are going to lose their collective minds. They will scream about the use of reconciliation. When they do, we must be ready to point out how often Bush used it. And that only a few 'amendments' were passed that way.
They will scream that the public doesn't want Obamacare. And that's where the hard work will be. Educating the public that the vast majority of the provisions in the bill are ones they like - tax breaks for small business, the exchange, and so on.
We need to force the screaming crybabies to explain why the public doesn't want those enormously popular items at the top of the chart. The time to start thinking about framing it that way is now. They are going to frame this as the Democrats using a trick to pass a bill the public doesn't want. The Democratic Party needs to get the truth out about this bill.
Lean on your Senators. Lean on your Representative. Tell them to support reconciliation to pass health care. Tell them to include the public option and the millionaires tax (the only two popular items not in the Senate Bill per Nate).
Let's get this done. Because if we play it correctly, the GOP is going to look like sore losers. And if there's one thing Americans dislike, it's whiny crybaby sore losers.

And just for grins, here's a quote from Newt Gingrich:

February 20, 2010
I'm not frightened by bipartisanship... We should be brave enough to stand up and say let's work together until we finish defeating the left and then we won't have to work with them as much.
Supplied via Political Wire
Update:
I think this is my first trip to the top of the Recommended List. I think it's because it's a slow Saturday evening, but I thank all those who clicked the little button.
From dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/2/20/839072/-Jonathan-Chait-on-the-coming-conservative-freak-out"