FEBRUARY 28 / That was then

THE FOUNDERS, [historian Robert Caro] said, meant the Senate to be a deliberative body, one strong enough to resist a popular president when any of its members thought it their duty to do so. The Senate's constitutional role of resisting tides of popular passion could be ended if a simple majority could end debate before it had begun.

(Editorial, "Nuclear option: The constitutional rule of an independent Senate is more important than the confirmation of a handful of ideological judicial nominee," Houston Chronicle, March 28, 2005)

Obama and the Democrats should specifically not be cowed from using the parliamentary device known as reconciliation to push the number of votes needed for Senate passage down from 60 to a simple majority of 51 in the upper chamber.

There is no shame in relying on the smaller majority in the Senate. It has been used before by the same Republicans who now criticize it. The real crime would be to let this moment of opportunity for reform pass without action.

(Editorial, "Health summit makes clear Obama and his party should move forward on their own," Houston Chronicle, February 27, 2010)

* * *

In nine precious paragraphs Saturday, the Chronicle editorial board displayed its worst characteristics.

Lack of principle. See above. What was during the Bush administration a violation of "the Senate's constitutional role of resisting tides of public opinion" is now during the Obama administration "no shame." 

Fondness for leftist cliches. "Moneyed special interests."

Hyperpartisanship. Opposition to Obamacare is not based on principle; it's based on a "drumbeat of misinformation."

Alarmism. Obamacare cannot "be put off for a moment longer." (The Chronicle's very own example of a tide -- make that a tiny ripple -- of popular passion.)

Overstatement. The implication that "millions of Americans go without" health care, conflating the absence of medical insurance with the absence of care. The characterization of respect for political reality as a "crime." ("The real crime would be to let this moment of opportunity for reform pass without action.")  

Political blindness. The claim that the president and Democrats have "a clear mandate to move forward." A plaintive cry for "greater presidential leadership" by a president whose "leadership" has done more to defeat Obamacare than all the critics put together. Near silence on the president's real problem: Even with large majorities in both houses, he cannot round up enough Democrats to pass his sorry legislation; few Democrats from contested and contestible seats share the president's (and Chronicle's) enthusiasm for the political death of their own party. These "wavering centrist Democrats" just need a stronger dose of Obama to "stiffen their resolve," says the Chronicle.  

Policy blindness. The usual unseemly affection for transforming American into a welfare state. Characterization of president's radical plan, which is based on a statist vision the American people and Congress have rejected again and again over the decades, as "centrist and reasonable." The absurd implication that premiums would decline in an insurance system that loads insurers with expensive new mandates and invites gaming by folks who postpone their insurance purchase until they break an arm or need chemotherapy. (If the editors had been listening to the summit, they would have heard the president concede that the GAO is right: premiums would rise.) The even more absurd notion that the federalization of one-sixth of the economy, an avalanche of new laws and regulations, and the seeding of new taxes here, there, and everywhere would somehow strengthen said economy.

Fiscal blindness. Willful silence on the fact that, even without Obamacare, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security already have the federal fisc on course toward the ruination of our children and grandchildren.  

Who needs to show leadership is the management of the Houston Chronicle, by firing this bunch and starting over with editors tethered by wisdom and common sense to the soil of Texas.

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[ace]

That was then, then there was "Change."