It should come as no surprise that Bill Kristol's reaction to the passage of health care reform is ungracious and tactical. After all, his "thinking" on this issue has been non-stop base and cheesy since he wrote his infamous memo advising Republicans to deny Bill Clinton a victory on health care in December 1993. The remarkable thing about that memo is that it remained the sole Republican strategy on health care 17 years later--well past its sell-by date--squelching the very valuable, and creative, thinking that had been emanating from the Republicans on health care since Stuart Butler's Heritage Foundation plan. (And no, Paul Ryan's crashingly radical plan to gut Medicare doesn't count as creative thinking.)

The remarkable key to Kristol's advice is the acknowledgment, in 1993, that the passage of health care reform would be a victory for Bill Clinton. Kristol thought it would be bad politics to grant Clinton the popularity that would come with passage.

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The House just passed the Senate health care bill, answering the question of whether or not President Obama and Democrats in Congress would be able to pass health care reform. See the roll call here.

At the White House, Robert Gibbs has been Tweeting the action:

About 40 staff in Roosevelt Room with VP to watch the vote - President walked into the room to sustained applause

POTUS watched vote in room aptly named for president who started this - cheers and clapping at 216 - high five for Rahm, hugs all around

The House vote on its debate rule--an essential precursor to the two votes to come later tonight--has passed with 224 votes in favor and 206 opposed. A landslide, huh?...So what was all the fuss about?

After working out a "deal" with the White House on abortion, Bart Stupak will be voting for health reform later this evening. I say "deal," because the executive order the White House announced it would issue to get Stupak's vote essentially promises that no federal funding will be used to subsidize abortion procedures--a promise easily enough given because that's exactly what Democratic leaders and the White House have said their version of health reform does all along.

It's really hard to interpret this as anything other than Stupak caving in order to end up on the side of supporting health reform. There's nothing wrong with that--Stupak has long been a supporter of reforming the health care system--but it's difficult to see why he dragged this out for months if he was going to settle for the Senate language in the end. Stupak's health care dance may well have made it even harder for pro-life Democrats to have their concerns taken seriously going forward.

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As Kate Pickert notes below:

Even so, Republican opposition was still in full force all day Saturday with House Minority Leader John Boehner saying passage of the Democratic plan for health reform would constitute “Armageddon” that would “ruin our country.”

You have to wonder what Boehner and the others will say on Monday morning--or on some stray Monday six months from now--if the sun is shining and the birds are singing...and America has, somehow, survived Armageddon and is, in fact, stronger than it is today, and people have health insurance that can no longer be taken away. The fact is, as the President has said repeatedly, health care is not going to change for the vast majority of Americans. And it is going to improve dramatically for those who don't have health insurance now or who worry that they're going to lose the coverage they have. The cost will go up a bit...but less so than if no legislation is passed...and, ultimately, if the health care exchange superstores have the same effect on competitive pricing that Walmart has had on consumer goods, the costs will come down.

Conservatives are poised to stand on the wrong side of history--as they have with every major piece of social legislation that has been passed since the New Deal. Which is too bad for our democracy,

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