Quote for this historic day

Listening to Republican Congressmen tonight, as well as conservative callers to C-SPAN, I was dumbstruck by the number of people claiming that Congress was somehow overriding the will of the people and ramming something down America's collective throat. Do they really believe that our government only does things that have more than 50% support in opinion polls? And if they believe that, how can they explain that the Iraq War continued long after the war lost support? It boggles the mind.

On that note, I thought this observation from Andrew Samwick was right on target:

I don't think anyone will hold up the bill that will pass as exemplary, but it does reflect elements of health care reform that Democrats campaigned on and won on in 2008. So I have a hard time seeing this as doing violence to the will of the people as it is typically expressed in our electoral system. Elections matter. This is how they matter.

Another conservative take on today's consequences from David Frum; he thinks passage of healthcare reform is a disaster for the Republican Party. And Ross Douthat, also on the right, is somewhat relieved that America will finally get the opportunity to see who is right about this bill: its supporters or its opponents. He is skeptical, but also hopeful.

And looking back on this historic day, it's important to note that Teddy Roosevelt campaigned for president on a platform which included national health insurance back in 1912. Almost 100 years later, we've finally achieved that goal. The New York Times has a timeline here.