You Don't Own It, Mr. President

Yesterday I commented on something Obama will say on his 60 Minutes interview tonight and what was wrong with his statement. It has to do with his claim that he'll be "held responsible for any problems that arise" from the passage of Obamacare. You can read that item here.

Today Bill Kristol takes a bit of a different view of the same basic premise, that somehow once Obamacare passes Obama will "own" it:

In his 60 Minutes interview to be aired tonight, President Obama apparently says, "I intend to be president for a while and once this bill passes, I own it....I'm the one who's going to be held responsible. So I have every incentive to get this right."

No, Mr. President. It’s not about you. If legislation passes, you don’t own it.

We all own it. Any health care bill will become part of the U.S. Code, not simply an item on the Obama White House web site. We will all feel its effects. We are all responsible for the future of our country. Here the people rule.

Which is why it is wrong to jam through a 1,000+ page legislative act in such a rush that its defenders can’t even give a coherent account of what it will and won’t do, and in order to deal with a situation that the president himself acknowledged Wednesday night is not a crisis (“But we did not come here just to clean up crises. We came to build a future. So tonight, I return to speak to all of you about an issue that is central to that future -- and that is the issue of health care.”).

The national debate on health care has just begun. Much of the popular anger of this past summer came from a feeling -- a justified one -- that if Obama has his way, we, the people, won’t have an opportunity to debate this issue as it deserves. The August recess seemed to be citizens’ one chance to force a reconsideration by their elected representatives before Obama succeeded in rushing the Congress to judgment.

This is a moment of truth for the two political parties.

Will enough Congressional Democrats refuse to be herded like sheep and stampeded like cattle? Will they do what is right, and insist, for the sake of the political health of the country, on an open and measured and deliberative process?

And if there are not enough such Democrats -- if the Democratic party simply yields to Barack Obama and his assurance that, hey, he has every incentive to get it right, so everyone else should just get out of the way -- if the Democratic Congress jams this legislation down the people’s throat -- then the Republican party will have to say: We do not yield. We do not acquiesce. And we will take this issue to the country in 2010 and 2012, with the purpose of repealing this dangerous and damaging legislation.

As I said yesterday, the timing of this legislation has been carefully planned to ensure that Obama will not be held responsible, because by the time this legislation goes into effect and begins to do real damage he'll either be out of office after losing in 2012, or will be ineligible to run again following his second term.