Now healthcare truly is Obama’s Waterloo

I don’t mean that President Barack Obama has lost the fight. I only mean that it’s that important politically.

The town hall rowdies and the Nazi ‘death panel’ rhetoric have truly defined the debate in this sense: There is only victory or defeat.

There cannot be delay, or incrementalism, or a changing of the topic.

On Mr. Obama’s side he has large congressional majorities, the mandate of his recent election, and fairly strong approval ratings, both for himself and for some substantial form of reform.

On the other side, substantive argument — the kind that would have improved and shaped the reform effort — has been largely eclipsed by vitriol, race-anger and flagrant deception.

If the Democrats can’t prevail now, they will have been defeated not by Blue Dog centrism or bipartisanship but by pure hooliganism.

Their new President will have been crippled by Sarah Palin, Glen Beck and gangs of people (some of them armed) carrying signs equating Mr. Obama with Adolph Hitler.

If that prospect doesn’t stiffen the spine of party leaders, nothing will.

Tags: health