The Cost of Blind Faith and Arrogance

Do you remember what then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in early 2010 when questioned about the details of the pending health care legislation?  To paraphrase, “we have to pass it to see what’s in it.” 

Fellow Democrats all fell in line, including self-identified moderates such as North Carolina’s Todd Heath and Senators Mary Landrieu and Ben Nelson of Nebraska.

Unbending allegiance to the Obama agenda by the likes of Nancy Pelosi and Senator Harry Reed was to be expected.  But what about others who were supposedly more independently-minded?  How could they so shameless abdicate their duties as legislators to understand what they were supporting?

 

Is the answer that they were under the “spell of Obama” like fans at one of the President’s campaign rallies?

As one who has followed politics for decades and worked in Congressional offices many years ago, I prefer to think not.  Adulation is for the naïve.  Sure, some of those serving Congress are such, but not many.  Most of them are regular people trying to do what seems right (which, not coincidentally, often coincides with self-interest).  But isn’t that largely true of the rest of us, too?

Was there a national emergency that compelled all Democrats to fall into line?

 

Eighty years ago, during FDR’s first term and the depths of the depression, there was a sense of understandable urgency.  Thus, radical legislation such as the National Recovery Act was pushed through a heavily Democratic Congress on a fast track.  It is unlikely, accordingly, that many legislators knew the details of such laws, either, before voting in favor.

But where was the emergency requiring the unread passage of Obamacare?  Evidently, the Administration’s rush was precipitated by the realization that the Obama luster was of uncertain duration.  Who could predict when the tarnish would appear?

For those Congressional Democrats suffering from liberal arrogance (plainly most), recent news on Obamacare constitutes well deserved comeuppance.  Alas, they’ll be unlikely, as true believers, to heed the lessons of humility:  hubris leads to disaster.

For others, one hopes they feel shame and embarrassment.  In the future, maybe, they will be more conscientious in the performance of their legislative duties.