The Week

Those wild and crazy supermarket tabloids just get more and more outrageous. First they reported that Elvis had been sighted alive, and now they’re saying the same thing about the Clinton health plan.

Bill Kristol of the Project for the Republican Future has grasped that the best way to get publicity for an idea is to label it “confidential.” His third memo on the political strategy of health-care reform, faxed to rudderless Republicans all over Washington last week, recognizes that the Clinton plan as written is in real trouble, but urges Republicans not to find themselves supporting the Cooper bill (whose prospects have improved with the wounding of Clinton’s scheme) by default. No large issues divide the two as John Hood demonstrates on page 46—indeed, Jim Cooper correctly claims that he and Clinton are “first cousins in this debate and . . . hoping for a family reunion this year.” So Mr. Kristol argues that there is now an opportunity to reframe the debate as a choice between a crisis-driven Clinton Cooper “jump into the abyss,” or practical solutions that give individuals more control over their health care. Bob Dole and Haley Barbour are praised for already taking this tack—which might eventually become, Kristol thinks, the “Moynihan-Dole” bill. Of course, once deals began to be cut in the Finance Committee, even a Moynihan—Dole bill might not look so good. But that’s a problem—not a crisis.

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William F. Buckley Jr.

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Those wild and crazy supermarket tabloids just get more and more outrageous. First they reported that Elvis had been sighted alive, and now they’re saying the same thing about the Clinton health plan.

Bill Kristol of the Project for the Republican Future has grasped that the best way to get publicity for an idea is to label it “confidential.” His third memo on the political strategy of health-care reform, faxed to rudderless Republicans all over Washington last week, recognizes that the Clinton plan as written is in real trouble, but urges Republicans not to find themselves supporting the Cooper bill (whose prospects have improved with the wounding of Clinton’s scheme) by default. No large issues divide the two as John Hood demonstrates on page 46—indeed, Jim Cooper correctly claims that he and Clinton are “first cousins in this debate and . . . hoping for a family reunion this year.” So Mr. Kristol argues that there is now an opportunity to reframe the debate as a choice between a crisis-driven Clinton Cooper “jump into the abyss,” or practical solutions that give individuals more control over their health care. Bob Dole and Haley Barbour are praised for already taking this tack—which might eventually become, Kristol thinks, the “Moynihan-Dole” bill. Of course, once deals began to be cut in the Finance Committee, even a Moynihan—Dole bill might not look so good. But that’s a problem—not a crisis.