Hendrik Hertzberg has a must-read post up on his New Yorker blog. These two excerpts spell out most of his thesis:
Having been around a while, I have some memory of the Years One of four previous Democratic Presidents. Turbulence during takeoff has been the rule. It is wise to keep one’s seat belt loosely fastened.
Whether yesterday’s upset in Massachusetts turns out to be a catastrophe or merely a setback now depends largely on the grown-upness, or lack of it, of liberals in the House of Representatives. I don’t see any way out of the darkness right now other than for the House to tighten its stomach muscles, pass the Senate version of the health-care bill A.S.A.P., and move on to jobs and the economy. The Senate health-care bill, however inferior to the House version, is vastly superior to the status quo. The only alternative I can discern is no bill at all—a political, substantive, and humanitarian failure that would reverberate for a generation.
As to the rest, he doesn't say so explicitly, but it's clear he's talking to all the libs in the house, and not just the House, if you see what I'm saying, and apologies if you're ingesting this by audio through some fancy screen reader.
Anyway, please read the whole thing.
(h/t: KK, via email)
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