Monday evening links: Unmaking the sausage, et cetera

Kimberley Strassel on how Nancy made her toxic sausage. One ingredient was water:

As for those who needed more persuasion: California Rep. Jim Costa bragged publicly that during his meeting in the Oval Office, he'd demanded the administration increase water to his Central Valley district. On Tuesday, Interior pushed up its announcement, giving the Central Valley farmers 25% of water supplies, rather than the expected 5% allocation. Mr. Costa, who denies there was a quid pro quo, on Saturday said he'd flip to a yes.

Jennifer Rubin and Robert Zelnick find Obamacare to be "a lot of pain with uncertain gains":

Robert Zelnick writes: “Everything about the House-passed bill smacks of political excess rooted in ideological purity.” He then tries to puzzle out who the bill is supposed to help. What about the poor and uninsured? “Well, most of the truly needy are already protected by Medicaid. Most of the rest: employed married folks who have chosen the risky but comprehensible path of self-insurance?” So there isn’t a big net plus — or a group of grateful voters whose votes are sufficient to balance all the angry conservatives and independents. What about cost containment? As Zelnick says, “the bill does nothing.” But there are many who are getting socked:

Read on.

How great is health care going to be? This great: Exempted from Obamacare: Senior Staff Who Wrote the Bill

Rich Lowry has five reasons not to despair. Among them:

The truth will out. Obama has been saying things about his bill that are untrue: It won’t make premiums go down; it won’t control costs; it won’t allow everyone who likes their current insurance arrangements to keep them. These false representations may well make the bill more unpopular rather than less after passage.

I believe that's a certainty.

Bill Kristol takes it a step further and says Yes We Can - Repeal the bill, that is.

Luckily, key parts of Obamacare--especially the subsidies--don’t go into effect until 2014. So what Republicans have to do is to make the 2010 and the 2012 elections referenda on Obamacare, win those elections, and then repeal Obamacare. [RTR]

From RS McCain, some hapless Canadian academic makes like a "banana republic police chief" (Steyn) and warns Ann Coulter -- Ann Coulter -- not to speak too freely when she tours Canada. Ann:

I hope they send the Royal Canadian Mounted Police after me!

I think Dudley will have met his match. Steyn:

What a sad and embarrassing letter, even by the standards of the Canadian academy. Does M Houle write to all University of Ottawa speakers like this? Or does he reserve his telekinetic powers to detect "pre-crime" only for the ideologically suspect?

I've no idea what Ann Coulter's reaction to this letter is, but I suspect it's "Go ahead, Princess Fairy Pants, make my day."

RTR.

Another reason not to despair: this isn't Canada. Yet. Memeorandum has more.

Mood swing alert -- gloom and doom from John Derbyshire:

I see plainly that Western civilization, over my lifetime, has been a slow-sinking ship. The few who have known what is happening have worked desperately to seal the watertight doors, repair the fissures, pump out the flooded zones. It's been a losing fight, though. The tilt of the decks is harder and harder to ignore. Last night, a major bulkhead gave way. Soon a funnel will topple over with a great crash and a shower of sparks. Yet still the band is playing, the people are dancing, the food coming up from the galley. [. . .]

It'll be over soon. We'll be down in the cold, lightless depths of imperial despotism — in which, after all, the great majority of human beings, throughout history, have always lived. It's the natural way: liberty is an unstable temporary aberration.

Read the rest.

Lastly, a little funny from Jim Treacher:

If you’re a Democrat who voted for this, you might be thinking: “I’m glad I don’t have to go back to my district and talk about this again.” That is so adorable. What else is new in Candyland?

Linked at Michelle Malkin (buzzworthy)
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