(Quin Hillyer, Liberty Headlines) With the collapse of the U.S. House Republicans’ legislative efforts to replace Obamacare, the blame game on the right has reached epic proportions.
Many mainstream publications and pundits laid the failure at the feet of the House Freedom Caucus, a group of conservative hard-liners, and at their allies among outside hard-line groups. But President Trump, Speaker Paul Ryan, some Republican moderates – and a general lack of patience – all received plenty of incoming fire as well. Indeed, Ryan seemed to get it from all sides, with right-leaning pundits blasting him at the same time people close to Trump also pointed the finger at him. (Continued beneath unfortunately-placed ad.)
Starting with the Freedom Caucus, the Wall Street Journal editorialists ripped that conservative bloc eve before the bill officially failed. Friday’s editorial called the group the “Freedom-From-Reality Caucus,” and accused its members of “rule-or-ruin tactics.” Outlining a number of conservative policy reforms in the bill, the Journal predicted that killing it would mean that the only health-care legislation that could pass in the future would be far worse: “By insisting on the impossible over the achievable, these self-styled guardians of conservative purity could become the worst friends conservative ideas and free markets have had in decades.”
The Journal followed with another broadside the next day, after Speaker Ryan pulled the bill. The conservative-leaning editorial page asserted that now the current Obamacare law now belongs to the Freedom Caucus’s “Obamacare Republicans” who refused to replace it. Accusing them of not negotiating honestly, the Journal wrote, “you can’t have good-faith negotiations when one party doesn’t know how to say yes – or won’t.”
…. [later in the piece] …. On the other hand, the Freedom Caucus was portrayed as heroes by conservative pundits who thought the House Ryancare bill was fatally flawed, because it did not fully repeal Obamacare. Erick Erickson at The Resurgent proclaimed, “The House Freedom Caucus Saves America,” and asserted “the legislation was deeply flawed and would have hurt a great many Americans. It would have made it harder for free market solutions to lower costs in health care and would have harmed senior citizens.” Radio host Mark Levin likewise thanked the Freedom Caucus, whom he called “true constitutional conservatives” who stopped “this disastrous bill from passing.”….
(Please read the rest of this here.)
