The political left has been doing a lot of celebrating in the past 48 hours. On Sunday, the long-awaited health insurance reform bill passed the House, and as I write this, Obama is signing the bill into law.

Democrats are claiming a comeback-from-the-brink victory. The punditry says that Obama’s presidency is now back on track. Rank and file Obamaphiles have reason to hope again. (All this, despite a fairly lackluster and watered-down bill.)

But how does Obama’s victory sit with conservatives? Not the Tea Party madmen, but the conservative establishment — the Beltway insiders who actually strategize about this stuff. Like David Frum, the prolific neo-con pundit, AEI Fellow, and thought leader for serious conservatives. He’s penned a fascinating post-mortem, “Waterloo,” that’s been zooming around conservative circles, essentially arguing that the GOP’s Strategy of NO helped them win a few battles, but lose the war. An excerpt:

“A huge part of the blame for today’s disaster [the healthcare bill] attaches to conservatives and Republicans ourselves.

At the beginning of this process we made a strategic decision: unlike, say, Democrats in 2001 when President Bush proposed his first tax cut, we would make no deal with the administration. No negotiations, no compromise, nothing. We were going for all the marbles. This would be Obama’s Waterloo – just as healthcare was Clinton’s in 1994.

Only, the hardliners overlooked a few key facts: Obama was elected with 53% of the vote, not Clinton’s 42%. The liberal block within the Democratic congressional caucus is bigger and stronger than it was in 1993-94. And of course the Democrats also remember their history, and also remember the consequences of their 1994 failure.

This time, when we went for all the marbles, we ended with none.”

Will this become the conventional wisdom and push the GOP back to the negotiating table? And would that be good for progressive policy? Read the rest of the piece here.