Bill Kristol's Message to GOP on Health Care Reform: "Go For the Kill"

Posted by Rachel Weiner, Huffington Post at 10:50 AM on July 20, 2009.

At the Weekly Standard, editor Bill Kristol has declared war on health care reform, telling Republicans now is the time to "go for the kill."

With Obamacare on the ropes, there will be a temptation for opponents to let up on their criticism, and to try to appear constructive, or at least responsible. There will be a tendency to want to let the Democrats' plans sink of their own weight, to emphasize that the critics have been pushing sound reform ideas all along and suggest it's not too late for a bipartisan compromise over the next couple of weeks or months. [...]

[T]his is not the time to let them off the ropes. This is the week to highlight every problem, every terrible provision, in the Democratic bills: from taxes and spending to government control and rationing to federal funding for abortion and government-required death-with-dignity counseling sessions for the elderly. Throw the kitchen sink at the legislation now on the table, drive a stake through its heart (I apologize for the mixed metaphors), and kill it.

Kristol sang the same tune in 1994 -- only then he was more blunt, telling Republicans to forget the policy implications and kill the bill to keep Democrats down. It worked then. But as Joe Klein writes at Time, "That was then. The conservative tide was still flowing strong. It's ebbing now, although many Congressional Democrats haven't figured that out yet."

Tagged as: gop, joe klein, health care reform, weekly standard, william kristol, obamacare