CAN'T MAKE A WINGNUT OMELET WITHOUT BREAKING A FEW FLIP-FLOPPING BILLIONAIRES

It occurs to me that if the health care bill passes, Mitt Romney's presidential bid is doomed in 2012.

I realized that reading a Wall Street Journal op-ed titled "The Failure of RomneyCare." I know a lot of you don't think the repeal strategy is going to work for the Republicans, but I think they really are going to put most of their chips on repeal, or at least a campaign demand for repeal (what they do when and if they're in charge is a separate question) -- and they're going to keep buttressing their case by arguing that the Obama health plan has to be a failure because the Massachusetts plan is a failure. Like this:

... Mr. Romney claimed earlier this month on "Fox News Sunday" that the Massachusetts health reform plan he signed into law in 2006 is "the ultimate conservative plan." But there are many similarities between it and the ObamaCare loathed by conservative voters....

While it's true that the liberal Massachusetts legislature did turn Mr. Romney's plan to the left, his claims that his plan is "entirely different" will not stand up to the intense scrutiny of a presidential campaign, especially a primary challenge. Mr. Romney needs to be more honest about his Massachusetts experiment and its failings....

The op-ed gets specific, and is wonky rather than inflammatory (how accurate it is I can't tell you), but when the righties get really revved up, closer to November (and possibly November 2012), expect them to sic Betsy McCaughey on Romney and the Massachusetts plan, if not Sarah Palin. He'll have to go through the reeducation camp and renounce his own handiwork. I'm pretty sure it won't save him.