Nakedly Self-Interested Political Calculation

The Emperor has no clothes. We have seen this kind of duplicity before, but now it's in our face, as Senate Democrats and their president are ramming this bill through in the days before Christmas, rousing widespread revulsion. Our President Barack Obama has lost the moderate economic seer Robert Samuelson. Bigtime. "A Parody of Leadership". ObamaCare is "atrocious legislation".

Jay Cost, "Democrats Risk another Jacksonian moment":

This is why Democratic leaders are courting disaster with this health care bill. With it, they've moved their questionable wheelings and dealings from the margins to the center of American life. And because of this, they risk being swept away in another Jacksonian moment.

Make no mistake. This bill is so unpopular because it has all the characteristics that most Americans find so noxious about Washington.

Read on.

Chicago Way, Beltway Democrats. A corrupt bill delivered behind closed doors. Where smiley-faced smarminess, rank political opportunism and crassly porky posturing reign.

Change Nobody Believes In. A bill so reckless that it has to be rammed through on a partisan vote on Christmas eve. WSJ. More stunning details of the bill. And this on our President Barack Obama: "He's forced to claim the mandate of "history" because he can't claim the mandate of voters."

Can we reverse the vote? The White House knows this bill is indefensible:

To defend this abomination of a bill yesterday on the Sunday shows, the White House did not send Health Reform director Nancy-Ann DeParle or Budget director Peter Orszag. Instead they sent White House sent political consultant David Axelrod to defend the bill on three of the five top Sunday shows.

And we have a Democrat Congressman comparing opponents of this monstrosity to Nazis on Kristallnacht.

Now we know it's indefensible.

(Sen. Durbin intones more pompous pieties but perhaps we should recall here that Dem Sen. Byrd is a former Klansman. Not to mention Sen. Durbin's own despicable remarks.)

Enough. We see you in all your tawdry nakedness. Plummy words can't give you cover this time.