The Manhood Contest

Byron York has an insightful piece on the hardball politics that will be pretty common in the House of Representatives as Nancy Pelosi tries to get enough votes to pass the Senate bill:

There's no way around it. Things in the House of Representatives are about to get very, very rough.

With their backs to the wall, Democratic leaders are preparing a complicated plan to pass their national health care bill. Standing in the way are Democrats who oppose the bill, whether on principle or out of fear that voting for a wildly unpopular measure will spell defeat for them in November.

If you think House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is going to let them off easy, allowing them to kill the party's top policy priority in more than a generation -- well, that's not gonna happen. Democrats who are considering voting against the bill are about to experience arm-twisting, threats, and pressure like they've never experienced.

I called a Democratic strategist with a question: Say I'm a moderate Democrat. I voted for the House bill last November, but I've seen the polls, I know a majority in my district opposes the bill, and I feel certain that voting for final passage will end my time in office. Why should I vote yes?

"Look, you voted for it before," said the strategist, who asked to remain anonymous. "You should have thought about that then. You're stuck with the vote, it's around your neck, you're going to wear it like an albatross. The ad that's going to run against you is going to be the same whether you vote for it now or not.

"The Republicans are going to be able to frame what you did their way, and you're going to need to be able to frame it a different way, to say that you fought to make health insurance more affordable and insurance companies more accountable.

"And if you're a bedwetting crybaby, you should just go home right now."

If you get the idea that, in private at least, Democrats are going to make this vote a serious test of manhood, you're right.

"You big weenie, you know what I'd like to say to you?" the strategist continued.

"You sit there and you're willing to go send an 18-year-old to go fight for his country, knowing he might die, and here you are unwilling to take a tough vote on an issue that you promised your constituents and you voted for once before? You don't deserve to be here!"

Ah, but there is an out for those who voted for Obamacare previously and don't want to now - they're not the same bills. Those who voted "yes" voted for the House bill which has quite a few differences from the Senate bill. The Senate bill includes funding for abortions, the "Cornhusker Kickback" and the "Louisiana Purchase". None of these things were in the House bill. There are significant differences.

So, Democrats, if it's a question of manhood, how about standing up to Pelosi and gang who would have you sacrifice your career for a demonstrably worse Obamacare bill than the one that passed the House last year?

And if that isn't enough, they're asking you to vote for the Senate bill based on promises from Obama that the things you don't like in the bill will be fixed via reconciliation in the House. What are the odds that Obama or Harry Reid will keep those promises and be able to get enough votes to pass those changes?

As they say in Russian, slimski and noneski.

Jeffrey Anderson at NRO adds this about the reconciliation process:

If the House goes first, as now appears to be the plan, and passes the Senate health-care overhaul, the president would then have a bill in hand that had passed both houses of Congress, and -- whether reconciliation subsequently succeeded or failed in the Senate -- we would have Obamacare.

Reconciliation would then be like the exhibition ice skating in the Olympics after the medals have been awarded: interesting to some, but wholly irrelevant to anything that really matters.