here is a bit of long view perspective by Abe Greenwald. here is a snip, but you really should go read the whole essay.
For amid the symbolic fanfare of giant gavels and the tactical gravitas of deployed Lincoln quotes, one important fact is being swept aside: the state’s co-opting of the private sector never ends well. Every learned lesson about free markets and central planning, incentives, the allocation of scarce resources under competing systems, government incompetence, overall quality of life and freedom in socialist vs. capitalist states — in short, the reality of the Cold War — has been unlearned. Sunday night brought us the most ahistoric bit of history-making we’re likely to see in our lifetimes.
and here is Jon Ward with the much shorter term view.
The health-care bill that hung around Democrats’ necks for the last several months – right up to the final vote Sunday when some vulnerable congressmen were convinced to support it – has suddenly become a weapon.
If politics were war, Republicans would have just been lured from their walled city to chase a force they thought was retreating, only to find Democrats suddenly turning and attacking them head-on.
are they both right? Did the Dems both hurt our nation and help themselves by ramming through the health care reform on a partisan basis against the will of the American people?
or is neither one right? does our country remain in good shape for the long haul even though democrats hurt themselves badly for the fall election?
Or is one right and the other wrong? which is which?