COMMENTARY | As Obamacare continues to burn to the ground, attempts to spin the disaster that does not involve President Obama becoming a lame duck for the next three years, proceeds apace. Salon has one of the inevitable narratives. It’s all the Republicans’ fault.
This would seem to be an eccentric idea, even careening into conspiracy nut territory. Remember, the Orwellian named Affordable Care Act was rammed through Congress without any Republican votes or even Republican input. The website design was not managed by Republicans, but by CGI Federal, which boasts as a senior vice president one Toni Townes-Whitley, an old classmate of Michelle Obama’s. CGI had gotten the job to build the website as a result of a non bid contract.
The sin of the Republicans, according to Salon, is that they continued to oppose a law that they thought would be disastrous, a judgment that seems to have been vindicated.
“Which leaves the question: how does the October rollout go if none of this had happened? If there had been aggressive oversight by Republicans in the House, and perhaps a few repeal votes, but otherwise elected Republicans had done their best to carry out the law even if they disagreed with it? We’ll never know the answer, and again this kind of question is definitely not intended to deflect the share of the responsibility that the president and his administration should take. But my guess? It would have been a whole different ballgame.”
The implication is that had Republicans bent the knee and submitted, all might be well. The hypocrisy laden in this idea is mind blowing, considering for example the opposition by many Democrats to the Iraq War (which many had actually supported). Despite that, President Bush managed a win with the troop surge of 2007-2008, over the objections of those same Democrats. There was no attempt to place blame. Since Bush is apparently a better leader than Obama, there were no helicopters evacuating the last Americans from the Green Zone while Baghdad burned.
Had Obama enlisted Republican support and suggestions for the health care law, thus broadening the support for it and, presumably, making it more sustainable, he would not now be seeing his hopes crumbling and with it the liberal approach to big government for the next generation. Of course the Republicans opposed the implementation of Obamacare. They were never asked to support it. They were just ordered to tug the forelock, bow down, and accept it. That is not what an opposition party does in a Republic.
