In today’s Washington Post ("Senate Finance Committee Chair Holds Out Hope That Bipartisan Accord Can Be Reached"), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) stuck his foot in the Republican Party’s mouth:

“Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) signaled Tuesday his party may retreat from the ‘just say no’ approach [on healthcare reform] that was effective this summer.  Doing nothing, he said, is not an option. ‘At this point, there really should be no doubt where the American people stand. The status quo is not acceptable, but neither are any of the proposals we've seen from the White House or Democrats in Congress,’ he said. What people want, McConnell said, is a less costly effort with a less ambitious scope. ‘They want reforms, but they want the right reforms,’ he said.”

Is this the sound of professional Republican politicians beginning to cave in on a government takeover of healthcare?  Was the Republican Leader signaling their willingness to cut a deal with the “right reforms,” such as an individual mandate and healthcare cooperatives, which Senate Democrats are now promoting and numerous Republican Senators are on record supporting?  Or is it the sound of a tactical misstep by the Senate Republican Leader putting his foot too close to the edge and finding his footing collapsing beneath him? 

The minute the Senate Republican Leader accepted the President’s patently false premise that “doing nothing is not an option,” he stepped out onto a slippery slope.  Unless his colleagues pull himself back off it immediately, he could pull the entire Republican Party down to ruin along with him. 

Once the GOP gives in to the President’s scare mongering on the urgent necessity for immediate action on healthcare, the party will be unable to continue the struggle against government-run healthcare.  The political pressure for a “bipartisan compromise” will become unbearable, and the Republican Party will find itself responsible for another government takeover.

The time for the Senate Minority Leader to correct his misstep is measured in hours, not days.  Given the well-justified suspicion by conservatives that professional Republican politicians will cut a deal with the Obama Administration, despite the overwhelming grass-roots opposition to doing so, the Leadership of the GOP must speak with extraordinary clarity and forcefulness, immediately. 

To correct Senator McConnell’s gaff, if that is what it was, it is necessary for the Senate Leadership—even better the entire Senate Republican Conference and the Republican National Committee—to release statement(s) making it crystal clear that:  (1) It is the position of the Republican Party that there is no crisis in the American healthcare system; and (2) The American public is currently too split over what to do about fixing the real problems with healthcare to pass ANYTHING during this Congress.  (3) The Senate Republican Conference and the RNC also should call upon the Senate/Congress to postpone further consideration of major healthcare reform until after the midterm elections when a new Congress can take up the issue.  (4) Finally, the statements should declare the Republican Party unalterably opposed to passing ANY healthcare reform measure in the Senate under Reconciliation.

Doing nothing right now not only is a viable option, it is the only sane option since the White House and congressional Democrats refuse to consider real reforms that would actually fix the current problems with the healthcare system.  Saying anything but “no” only advances White House efforts to takeover healthcare and give it to the bureaucrats to run.

On Labor Day, I wrote a blog (“Republican Waterloo”) taking the Republican Party to task for the central role it has played over the years in taking away our freedoms, strangling free markets, undermining our republican form of government and driving the nation toward a European fascist/corporatist model.  I said that RHINOCare would be the GOP’s Waterloo if it were used as the delivery vehicle in which to smuggle into law a government takeover of healthcare.  I suggested that if the Republican Party stood idly by and allowed the Obama Administration and Senate Democrats to jam a thinly disguised government takeover of healthcare down the throats of the American People, it would be the last straw, and the conservative base would turn on the GOP with a vengeance.  

I was excoriated by numerous professional Beltway Conservatives whose livelihood depends on the perpetuation of the Republican Party regardless of the damage it does to the country.  They can howl and attack me all they want.  I am not their problem; the brewing rebellion among the conservative base is their problem, and if the Republican Party fails to stop a government takeover of healthcare, it will be the wrath of the people with which they must contend.