Conservatives undercut health reform at their peril

[babylonsister]

http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2009/09/column-conservatives-undercut-health-reform-at-their-peril.html


Conservatives undercut health reform at their peril
By DeWayne Wickham

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Success or Waterloo?

"I may not be the first president to take up the cause of health care reform, but I am determined to be the last. We are going to get it done this year," Obama said to his Minneapolis audience, invoking words he used a few days earlier in his nationally televised address to a joint session of Congress.

Sensing that the health care fight could produce a big victory for right-wingers, South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, a leading Republican conservative, told some supporters in July: "If we are able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him."

But the multifront battle conservatives are waging is about more than breaking Obama. It's about political resurrection. It's about turning back the clock — stopping the multiracial, multiethnic coalition that put Obama in the White House from ushering in a new, and commanding, U.S. political force.

Conservatives want to keep Obama from making health coverage a basic right because that will strengthen his political standing and hasten their demise.

And, as in all fights for survival, the rules of engagement in this contest would make Attila the Hun blush. So in the days ahead, you can expect that conservatives will find new ways to challenge Obama's legitimacy and slime themselves in the process.