[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 44 (Monday, March 22, 2010)]
[House]
[Pages H2192-H2193]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                WATERLOO

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. As the dust settles, Mr. Speaker, on the Capitol 
today, I read and article called ``Waterloo,'' by President George W. 
Bush's speech writer, David Frum. I think it sums up nicely what we've 
just witnessed, and I wanted to share some excerpts with you.
  He began, Conservatives and Republicans today suffered their most 
crushing legislative defeat since the 1960s. It's hard to exaggerate 
the magnitude of the disaster. Conservatives may cheer themselves that 
they'll compensate for today's expected vote with a big win in the 
November 2010 elections, but, first, it's a good bet that conservatives 
are overly optimistic about November--by then, the economy will have 
improved and immediate goodies in the health care bill will be reaching 
key voting blocs. Second, So what? Legislative majorities come and go. 
The health care bill is forever.
  Now comes the hard lesson: A huge part of the blame for today's 
disaster attaches to conservatives and Republicans themselves.
  At the beginning of this process, he says, 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 he marbles. 
This would be Obama's Waterloo, just like it was for Clinton in 1994.
  The hard-liners overlooked a few key facts: Obama was elected by 53 
percent of the vote, not Clinton's 42 percent; the liberal bloc within 
the Democratic congressional caucus is bigger and stronger than it was 
in 1993-1994; and, of course, the Democrats also remember their history 
and also remember the consequences of the failure of 1994.

[[Page H2193]]

  This time, when we went for all the marbles, we ended up with none.
  No illusions, please. This bill will not be repealed. Even if 
Republicans scored a 1994-style landslide in November, how many votes 
could they muster to reopen the doughnut hole and charge seniors more 
for prescription drugs? How many votes to re-allow insurers to rescind 
policies when they discover a preexisting condition? How many votes to 
banish 25-year-olds from their parents' insurance coverage? And even if 
the votes were there, would President Obama sign such a repeal?
  We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, he 
says, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat. They were 
leaders who knew better, would have liked to deal, but they were 
trapped. Conservative talkers on Fox and talk radio whipped the 
Republican voting base into such a frenzy that dealmaking was rendered 
impossible. How do you negotiate with somebody who wants to murder your 
grandmother or, to be more exact, with someone whom your voters have 
been persuaded to believe wants to murder your grandmother?
  I've been on a soapbox for months, he says, now about the harm that 
our overheated talk is doing to us. Yes, it mobilizes supporters, but 
by mobilizing them with hysterical accusations and pseudo-information, 
overheated talk has made it impossible for Representatives to represent 
and elected leaders to lead. The real leaders are on TV and radio. They 
have very different imperatives from people in government.
  Talk radio thrives on confrontation and recrimination. When Rush 
Limbaugh said 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 wanted Republicans to fail. If 
Republicans were to succeed--if they governed successfully in office 
and negotiated attractive compromises out of office--Rush's listeners 
would get less angry. If they're less angry, they listen to the radio 
less and hear fewer adds about Sleep Number beds.
  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 radio and television. For them, it's a mission accomplished. For the 
cause they purport to represent, it's Waterloo--ours.
  This is a very good self-reflective view of what happened yesterday.

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