The Difference

Josh Marshall:

Just what the effect will be, I find it difficult to predict. In part that is because so much of the pushback over August (not withstanding reasonable policy disagreements with the broad outlines we know of Obama's reform) has been a hash of paranoia, organized lying and militant frivolity that I'm not sure it's an easy thing to judge the direction of this in anything approaching rational terms.

If people are buying that, maybe the debate is just broken beyond repair?

On the other hand, I think Obama may have resumed a certain command over the debate. Because the contrast between him and the hucksters to whom the Republicans have ceded this debate, and the difference between the actual details of reform and whatever it is everyone has been talking about through August, is simply very difficult to ignore.