It Was in Repute?

The following is an excerpt from OpinionJournal.com’s “Best of the Web” written by the editor, James Taranto.

It Was in Repute?
“Camel Racing Thrown Into Disrepute”–headline, Daily Telegraph (London), Jan. 20

Questions Nobody Is Asking
“Why No Miss America From Louisiana or Massachusetts?”–headline, MSNBC.com, Jan. 19

ObamaCare
ObamaCare is now under attack on two fronts. By a vote of 245-189, the House yesterday approved the Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act. A day earlier, as the Associated Press reports, six more states–Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Ohio, Wisconsin and Wyoming–joined the lawsuit in Florida federal court seeking to overturn ObamaCare. This brings the total number of state-government plaintiffs to 26, which is nearly half of the 57 states** and a majority of the 50.

Three Democrats–Dan Boren of Oklahoma, Mike Ross of Arkansas and Mike McIntyre of North Carolina–joined all 242 Republicans in voting “yes.” National Review Online reports another North Carolina Democrat, Rep. Larry Kissell, initially assented to the bill but switched at the last minute. (Thanks to a Democratic gerrymander, Democrats have a 7-6 majority in North Carolina’s House delegation even after last year’s election. But Republicans control the redistricting process this time around, so that Tar Heel Democrats are an endangered species.)

Politico reports that the result had “the same partisan feel of the March vote to pass the law, underscoring once again the hardened political lines of the health care debate.” That’s one way of looking at it. Another is that the March vote, at 219-212, was a lot closer and would have gone the other way had moderate Democrats not been bullied into supporting the legislation.

The Daily Beast finds “surprising unity” on the Democratic side of yesterday’s vote, but anyone who’s surprised wasn’t paying attention in November. Of the 34 Democrats who voted against ObamaCare in 2010, only 10 voted against repealing it in 2011. The remaining 21 didn’t even make it to the next Congress, having retired or been defeated. (All but one of them were replaced by Republicans.) And what’s with the 10 who voted against both ObamaCare and repeal, anyway? Are they just obstructionists who say “no” to everything?

Politico reports that House Majority Leader Eric Cantor is challenging Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to bring the repeal bill up for a vote:

“If Harry Reid is so confident that the repeal vote should die in the Senate then he should bring it up for a vote if he’s so confident he’s got the votes,” Cantor said.

Reid’s office rejected the idea.

“Not only would repeal not pass, but according to a poll by AP over the weekend, three out of four people don’t want it to,” Reid spokesman Jon Summers said. “Why? Because full repeal means raising taxes on small businesses, reopening the Medicare donut hole, and putting insurance companies back in charge of your health care.”

Cantor would seem to have the better of this argument. Democrats still hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate, so they could defeat the bill with a simple majority. If Reid is right, such a vote would be a political winner, so why not hold it?

………

[While campaigning for president in Beaverton, Oregon in 2008, Barack Obama said: “It is wonderful to be back in Oregon. Over the last 15 months, we’ve traveled to every corner of the United States. I’ve now been in 57 states? I think one left to go. Alaska and Hawaii, I was not allowed to go to even though I really wanted to visit, but my staff would not justify it.”]

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