Iraq war not responsible for Obamacare

Noemie Emery:
"Can the GOP recover from Iraq?" asked Peggy Noonan last Friday. The answer is yes, it's doing it now.

No, Iraq was not the one thing that gave us Obamacare. It caused the 2006 congressional wipeout, but in 2008, John McCain, the man more associated with the war than any one except Bush himself, stayed close to Obama throughout the summer and actually led him by two or three points in September before the financial implosion kicked in. (It was this fiscal collapse that gave us Obamacare, along with a number of various oddities: "macaca;" the 200-plus felons who voted in Minnesota; and the Club for Growth running against Arlen Specter, which pushed him into the Democrats' arms.)

Conservatives are right to criticize many things in regard to Iraq, but there is a significant quotient of crisis inflation quite in excess of the practical evidence. We didn't lose in Iraq. Saddam is dead, as are his sons. Iraq has a government and a future.

Faint praise, perhaps, but Iraq is better off now than its neighbors, and better off than it would have been had the Arab Spring struck while Saddam was in power. George W. Bush's job approval has gone up 20 points since he left office. He is in the mid- to high 40s, just like Obama. If he's toxic, Obama is, too.
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There is more.

She makes a compelling case.  The Noonan theme which was embraced by several other "conservative" writers never made that much sense to me.  She is right that the financial collapse was the real problem and the Republicans failed to tie it to the Democrats who caused it with their housing policies of forcing banks to make bad loans to people who were not qualified.

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