On Voting

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"Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable."

G.K. Chesterton

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I read with interest an article by Peter Grier in the Christian Science Monitor that sought to clarify what recent poll numbers indicate.

For example,the Associated Press found that, while the majority believe the president is a nice guy, two–thirds rate his presidency as average at best — and nearly half rate his presidency below average. Clearly, liking the president and liking his agenda are two separate things.

I guess one of the most intriguing quotes I read said, in effect, Barack Obama seems like a nice guy, someone I might like to hang out with, but I like a lot of people and most of them aren't qualified to be president.

That's the part of public opinion polling that I have never fully comprehended, I guess. I get that people want to feel good about the people for whom they vote, but, please, try to understand. I was a child during the Nixon years. No one seemed to like him, not even people who voted for him, yet he was elected president twice. The second time he was elected, he got a higher share of the popular vote than anyone in American history except Lyndon Johnson.

The lesson I took from that was somewhat Machiavellian, I guess — a leader does not have to be loved or even liked. (Yet, the questions that are put to modern voters about their political choices — Which candidate do you like best? Which candidate would you rather have a beer with? — suggest that likability is the only thing voters consider.)

But a leader does need to lead.

Being liked simply isn't a requirement of the job. It's a plus, but it isn't necessary. And my assessment, after the special election in Florida, is that Democrats relied too much on the impression that Obama is generally well liked — and gave too little credibility to voter opposition to the policy.

I know that voters want to like the people for whom they vote, but I have voted in many elections, and I know it isn't always possible to like the candidates for whom you choose to vote.

When you're casting your vote, my experience is that you are more likely to encounter a race in which you really don't like either of the candidates as you are to encounter a race in which you do like them. (Most of the time, there will probably be one candidate you like better than the other.)

In every election, though, you really have two options. You can skip voting in that race entirely (you certainly aren't required to vote in every race on your ballot, and I generally do skip at least one such race every election), or, if you have no clear preference in the likability department, you can choose a candidate based on other (usually more important) factors, such as the candidates' relevant experience and records of achievement.

That, too, can be exaggerated, but the truthfulness of what a candidate says about himself or herself can be easily verified by enterprising reporters. So, too, can the success or failure of the policies and programs with which a candidate and/or the candidate's party are linked in the public mind.

Which brings me to the special election in Florida.

It's hard, in the aftermath of yesterday's special election in Florida's 13th congressional district, to avoid wondering just how much of an influence the low popularity of Barack Obama and the implementation of his signature achievement, the passage of Obamacare, had on the outcome — and, by extension, how much it will affect other races across the country in November.

Predictably, Democrats are downplaying the Obamacare part of it. Instead, they are pointing out that Republicans narrowly held on to a seat they have won comfortably for decades. Party cheerleader Debbie Wasserman Schultz was spinning so fast today that the loss amazingly became a positive.

Just as predictably, the Republicans are calling this an early indication of a national rejection of Obamacare. They dismiss the fact that the Republican winner was held under 50% in the three–candidate race. House Speaker John Boehner called it a "big win," which is a considerable stretch.

But here's the bottom line: The special election in Florida's 13th was a "must–win" for Democrats, in the words of political analyst Stuart Rothenberg.

For years, Democrats have been anticipating a takeover when the seat was open. After all, Democratic presidential nominees have carried the district in five of the last six national elections. But the takeover did not happen.

After the votes were counted, Rothenberg wrote this: "The Republican special election win doesn't guarantee anything for November. But it is likely to put Democrats even more on the defensive, undermining grassroots morale and possibly adding fuel to the argument that Democratic dollars should go toward saving the Senate than fighting for the House."

That's about the size of it.

Read His Lips

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Echoing the words of the 41st president, Republican George H.W. Bush, [Boehner] added, 'When we say we're going to cut spending, read my lips: We're going to cut spending.'

Washington Post

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Why do politicians insist on recycling phrases that have been discredited — in fact, have been ridiculed — over the years?

Just last fall, Barack Obama appeared on The Daily Show and said his economic adviser had done a "heckuva job."

That, of course, reminded everyone of Obama's predecessor's enthusiastic endorsement of his FEMA director in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina — but even George W. Bush couldn't make that one fly and "Brownie," as Bush called him, was out the door a few days later.

Eventually, when the stories of the late 20th and early 21st centuries are written, the Bushes may be remembered as foremost among the presidents for originating the kinds of phrases that future politicians would be advised to avoid if they wish to be taken seriously.

"Heckuva job" is certainly one of those phrases.

And so, too, is "Read my lips," originally a line from a Clint Eastwood movie that George H.W. Bush used, presumably because he wanted to project more of a macho image.

The elder Bush, as I'm sure many still recall, used "read my lips" as part of his promise to stand firm against tax increases — but that was a pledge he ultimately broke and for which he paid a political price.

(I always thought he was trying to emulate Ronald Reagan, who co–opted another Eastwood line — "go ahead, make my day" — in his promise to veto any tax increases.)

So I have to wonder about the judgment displayed by House Speaker John Boehner yesterday when he said, "When we say we're going to cut spending, read my lips: We're going to cut spending."

There's no doubt the stakes are high. As Kathleen Hennessey observes in the Los Angeles Times, "The prospect of a government shutdown loomed larger ... when Republican leaders ruled out the easiest path around a budget impasse and Democrats accused them of playing a dangerous game of chicken."

It seems to me that the language in this debate should reflect the seriousness of its high–stakes nature, but the speaker of the House chose to use a phrase that can only be linked to defiance, manipulation and broken promises on, essentially, the same issue. That's no way to build a consensus.

Those folks who remember when Bush said "read my lips" during his acceptance speech at the 1988 Republican convention are bound to remember that, ultimately, his bravado meant nothing without sincere efforts to reach a compromise with the other side.

In Congress, Democrats held the upper hand when the elder Bush was in the White House. Today, power is divided on Capitol Hill, but the challenge is the same.

Then, as now, the situation called for leadership.

Not macho catch phrases.

Holding Him To It

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"I think the overwhelming message that I hear from the voters is that we want everybody to act responsibly in Washington. We want you to work harder to arrive at consensus. We want you to focus completely on jobs and the economy and growing it so that we're ensuring a better future for our children and our grandchildren."

Barack Obama
Nov. 3, 2010

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It has been nearly a month since Barack Obama uttered those words.

It was the day after the midterm election that resulted in the largest shift in House seats since Pearl Harbor, and the president seemed humbled by the experience ("some election nights are more fun than others. Some are exhilarating; some are humbling. But every election ... is a reminder that ... power rests not with those of us in elected office but with the people we have the privilege to serve").

But, while he acknowledged that Americans "expect Washington to work for them, not against them" and said the message was that the people wanted their leaders to find common ground, he was almost defiant in his insistence on focusing on areas where he and the members of his party have shown the least inclination to compromise.

In yesterday's Washington Post, House Speaker–to–be John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell assured readers that, when they met with Obama, "all of us will have an opportunity to show the American people that we got [that] message."

And, before Tuesday's meeting with congressional leaders, Obama, too, sounded more conciliatory, pledging to reach out more to the opposition.

But, while they all talked the talk about seeking common ground, no one walked the walk — yet.

And Republicans continued to be the Party of No, defeating an extension of jobless benefits. I really do not think that is what the voters were voting for, and I think it will be interesting to see what happens when millions of Americans suddenly lose those benefits.

There's an old saying that all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. By the same token, I think, all that is necessary for the triumph of desperation is for politicians to take away the safety net that keeps good people going while they're trying to survive until the job market gets better.

Anyone who has been out there knows it has been horrific for the last couple of years.

Without that safety net, good people will be more likely to resort to things they ordinarily wouldn't consider if they weren't hungry or afraid of losing the roof over their heads. I'm not sure either the economy or the judicial system is ready for the kind of short–sighted lawmaking this seems to have spawned.

Midterm elections can be mysterious in their implications. I have read many analyses of the results. Some of them make sense to me. Some strike me as just plain looney.

Having said that, here are my thoughts on where we're going, a month after the midterms and only a day after the president's conference with congressional leaders.

It is unwise, it seems to me, to conclude that the American people, as a group, came to some sort of conclusion of any kind on Election Day. There are many people — myself included — who could have been persuaded to vote for the candidates for another party in the contests that were on their ballots if those nominees had been viewed as acceptable.

Besides, House races tend to be very local in nature. In large cities, some districts only cover a handful of neighborhoods. The issues are not national or international.

Only in states with the smallest populations are representatives elected on a statewide basis. The rest represent only portions of the states in which they live. Consequently, the issues that decide most House races may not be significant even in the rest of that state.

I have lived in congressional districts that were intensely partisan, and I have lived in congressional districts that were evenly balanced. Even in years when supposedly historic transitions were occurring, I can't remember anyone saying that they were voting for or against a certain House candidate because of the president.

Both sides have rationalized and will continue to rationalize the results, but they ultimately will have to come to terms with the unpleasant truths about themselves that this election revealed for all to see:

• Democrats squandered a golden opportunity that was handed to them in 2008 — the greatest economic crisis this country has faced in more than three–quarters of a century.
  
  In those days, Obama was being compared to Franklin D. Roosevelt, mentioned among presidents who entered office at times of great national distress and guided the country safely through them. But he resisted the voters' message to focus on the economy and jobs, and, thanks to the ongoing decline in his popularity, he was being compared to Jimmy Carter even before the midterms.
  
  While I disagree, as I always have, with the negative assessment that many insisted on giving to Carter's presidency (and continue to insist on giving it today), the comparisons of Obama to FDR and Obama to Carter are intriguing, to me, because they seem to represent polar opposites of presidential success.
  
  Roosevelt, of course, was elected president four times — in the days before the 22nd Amendment limited presidents to two terms. Carter was denied a second term.
  
  Regardless of how you may feel about those two presidencies, FDR and Carter both had something Obama does not — previous executive experience. And that would come in quite handy in the radically different political environment in which the president will find himself in little more than a month.
  
  Those two Democrats had to build compromises on smaller (and, arguably, less diverse) scales than they had to as president, and perhaps those presidencies serve as the ultimate arguments for and against gubernatorial experience when choosing a president.
  
  But Obama had no such experience when he became president. Can wielding the veto make up for not being able to pass any legislation in the second half of his term? Or can he learn a skill that he desperately needs to make him an effective leader?
  
  As Democrats look ahead to 2012, when not only Obama but nearly two dozen Democrat–held Senate seats will be on the ballot, the party's future may depend upon it.
  
  In case you haven't heard, the prevailing wisdom of the day is that Obama won't be denied a second term because the only sitting presidents since the Depression who have been defeated when they sought re–election were those who were challenged for their party's nomination — Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush. Another — Lyndon Johnson — withdrew from the race rather than take on the insurgent Gene McCarthy.
  
  Democrats have been reassuring themselves that Obama will not face such a challenge — and, therefore, will win a second term.
  
  That's a dangerous assumption to make.


• It is tempting, when one is flush with victory, to make assumptions about the voters' intent.
  
  But Republicans would be wise not to get carried away. This election was not an endorsement of Republican government. Exit poll after exit poll suggested that the voters still blame the Republicans for, as Obama likes to say, driving the economy into a ditch, and it will be incumbent upon them to prove themselves worthy of the temporary reprieve they have been given.
  
  Voters were, essentially, trying to get their leaders' attention. They've been trying to do that, for different reasons, for the last three elections, but there always seems to be, as Strother Martin said in "Cool Hand Luke," a failure to communicate.
  
  In 2006, voters began restoring Democrats to power in Washington by giving them modest control of the House and Senate. This, I have always believed, was a response to the shameful Terri Schiavo episode and Hurricane Katrina. Those were the events that began driving many voters away from the GOP.
  
  Two years later, Democrats were rewarded at the polls by voters who held Republicans responsible for the economic implosion. I guess the party's congressional margins were deceiving. Many Democrats seemed to believe the pendulum had swung in their direction permanently. Polls kept showing that people were overwhelmingly concerned about the economy and jobs, but Democrats insisted on scattershooting.
  
  The voters were in their back pockets, they assumed. And the voters figured the Democrats needed a good dose of reality so they went with the only option they had. At least, that is how I see it.
  
  Sometimes the option wasn't palatable. Most Tea Party candidates, for instance, were not readily embraced by the electorate, but a few were. And they may prove to be loose cannons for the Republican Party as it goes through what is, essentially, a probationary period.

Here's how I see the next couple of years playing out.

There are enough Democrats in the Senate that they can vote down anything the House Republicans approve. And House Republicans are sure to vote down anything Senate Democrats manage to squeeze through.

Stalemate, right? Which side will that favor two years from now?

The only way either side can claim to have accomplished much of anything in the next two years, it seems to me, is to reach out to the other side. Obama may have the most to lose. Unlike Bill Clinton, he won't be able to run against a completely obstructionist Congress since the Senate remained in Democratic hands.

Besides, the onus is on the president to bring the two sides together.

So, it all comes back to that compromise thing, that skill that successful governors — especially those who go on to become successful presidents — learn.

Whether he likes it or not, Obama needs to learn about the art of compromise.

That is, if he really does aspire to a second term.

Predicting the House

I was never a mathematician.

I mean, when I was a child, I did all right on my multiplication tables. And I managed to keep up with my classmates — sort of — when we moved on to more advanced types of math, like algebra and geometry.

But I must confess that, when we got into numerical constructions that involved figures that went into five or six digits or more, that was about the point where I got off the bus.

I do understand enough about math to know that the Democrats are about to get pummeled. I don't know how badly, but I suspect that it will be impressive, much like the 1994 midterms — and with about the same outcome, too.

Anyway, today my attention is on the battle for the House. In the next couple of days, I will write about the battle for the Senate.

As I say, I am not a mathematician. But I know the numbers are crumbling for the Democrats.

And many of them seem to be caught by surprise, like the proverbial deer caught in the headlights. How could that be possible? The signs have been all around them for more than a year.

First, there were all those polls showing slippage for both Barack Obama and the Democrats after the euphoria of the spring of 2009 wore off.

But many Democrats chose to ignore the signals the polls were sending to them. I distinctly remember one of my friends admonishing me that polls aren't accurate, that no matter what the polls were saying, the voters would stick with Obama and the Democrats because the Republicans were clearly to blame for all the nation's ills.

And they went forward, full speed ahead, with an increasingly unpopular health care proposal while ignoring the very issue that had made Obama the first Democrat in more than 30 years to receive a clear majority of the vote — job creation.

It got a little harder to ignore the gathering storm when Republican Scott Brown captured Ted Kennedy's Senate seat back in January. Many Democrats were understandably stunned by that development.

But Jeff Jacoby suggested, in the Boston Globe, that the Democrats had been handed a "blessing in disguise."

His only condition? "[I]f only they are wise enough to recognize it." And the Democrats were assuaged.

Well, I guess we'll find out if they were that wise in a little more than a week. But I never felt that they were, and their last–minute attempts to breathe life into an employment picture that is half again as bad as it was the day Obama took office have been transparent, at best.

In their hearts, Democrats seem to know what is coming; the recriminations have already begun.

I'll give Obama credit for realizing that he failed to give adequate attention to the political side of issues in the first half of his term and for placing the blame for it squarely on his own shoulders — well, sort of.

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"I think that one of the challenges we had two years ago was we had to move so fast, we were in such emergency mode, that it was very difficult for us to spend a lot of time doing victory laps and advertising exactly what we were doing, because we had to move on to the next thing," Obama said. "And I take some responsibility for that."

The attitude was to get the policy right, "and we did not always think about making sure we were advertising properly what was going on," Obama continued.

CNN wire staff

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Well, as Mario Cuomo observed a quarter of a century ago, "You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose." And this president, while gifted at the poetry part, has never been able to master the prose.

Much like his predecessor, he just can't seem to take the blame for anything.

And that, I suspect, is at the heart of the disconnect between Obama and the voters. Obama feels compelled to remind the voters that he inherited the bad economy. But that isn't the problem.

The problem is that the voters already understand that. Their disenchantment is not due to origin. It is due to the absence of evidence of improvement.

Obama may think all sorts of grand things about himself and his historically inevitable role, but the thing that broke open his race with John McCain was the economic implosion and the massive hemorrhaging of jobs that continued through his first year as president.

He has never been enough of a politician to recognize the one thing that the voters expected from him above all else — leadership through harrowing economic times. Even if a president can't produce jobs, he should be enough of a politician to know how to take credit for his efforts to promote job creation by those who can do it.

That is called reassuring the voters. And this president, as intelligent as he is, couldn't grasp the national need for that. Even if you have limited knowledge or understanding of history or human psychology, you know that Americans respond favorably to — and remember with fondness — presidents who feel their pain.

Presidents who appear aloof or distant in trying times usually do not remain president very long.

Many were expecting some sort of solidarity from the coalition of irregular and first–time voters who fueled Obama's election two years ago.

But, one by one, the groups that helped Obama by actually coming out and voting for him in unprecedented numbers on Election Day 2008 have been slipping away from the president's party (lately, Helene Cooper and Monica Davey indulged in some hand–wringing in the New York Times about the defection of women voters — who usually vote for Democrats but appear to be pulling away from them this year; so, too, did Liz Sidoti and Darlene Superville with the Associated Press).

They aren't necessarily switching parties. They're just resuming their usual pattern — and not voting at all. Some may be disappointed — as idealists often are — and some may feel permanently alienated from the system, but there are always some of those.

It's just more pronounced this time, with so many first–time and seldom–participated voters who showed up to vote for Obama last time — and now appear to be living down to expectations in the midterm.

There's no telling, of course, what these folks might do in 2012. But one thing, I think, can be said with some certainty as we approach Election Day 2010: even if the Republicans aren't winning over these folks in the midterm, Obama isn't retaining them. Electorally, they might as well not exist. They might as well be one of George Orwell's "unpersons."

Meanwhile, the GOP base — the composition of which has been fairly consistent for the last two or three decades — is said to be energized and eager to vote.

Whether turnout is low or high, Gallup is saying, Republicans stand to win and win big. Pollster Peter Hart recently said the Democrats face a Category 4 hurricane on Election Day.

The House

And I was reminded of something John Boehner said about six months ago: "at least 100 [House] seats are in play." Many political observers scoffed at such bravado; after all, what Boehner suggested would be truly historic, unprecedented in this nation's history.

(Well, a 100–seat swing might be unprecedented, but we have come close to that at times in the 19th century and in the first half of the 20th century.)

No matter what has happened in the last six months, to be honest, it still doesn't seem likely that the Republicans can win 100 House seats from the Democrats.

Of course, Boehner didn't say Republicans would win 100 seats, only that 100 would be in play. And, while each party would like to think it can win all the seats that are in play in a given election (and can devote seemingly endless hours to concocting scenarios in which it is conceivable to do so), such a thing simply never happens in modern America.

But today, some of the foremost political observers in America are suggesting gains that even they might have found impossible to believe only a few months ago.

• Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics and perhaps the most spot–on political prognosticator in America today, predicts that Republicans will gain 47 House seats.
  
  To put that into context, let's look at the largest gains experienced by either party in the last half century — Republicans won 54 seats in 1994, 47 seats in 1966 and 34 seats in 1980, and Democrats won 49 seats in 1974, 49 seats in 1958 and 34 seats in 1964.
  
  If Sabato is correct — and last time, he was darn near perfect — it would match the Republicans' gains in 1966.
  
  Oh, and take note, you Boehner defenders — Sabato says 99 Democrat–held House seats are in play.


• Nate Silver of the New York Times predicted something similar.
  
  The GOP, he said, will win 49 seats on Nov. 2.


• Charlie Cook, another accurate political handicapper, projects a 52–seat gain for the Republicans.
  
  Which puts him in roughly the same range as the other two ...


• But Jay Cost's prediction at The Weekly Standard dwarfs them all.
  
  Cost says Republicans will win 61 seats. That would be their biggest gain in more than 70 years.

No matter which one you think is more likely to be correct, the Republicans would take control of the House. They need to win 39.

I, too, think the Republicans will capture control of the House. I think Cost's prediction is too extreme, that it is more likely to be somewhere between Sabato and Cook.

I'm more inclined to favor Sabato — but I think his number, too, is too high — and say that I expect the Republicans to win about 45 House seats.

That's Ridiculous ... And Yet ...

Whatever else you may say about him — and there certainly are many things one could say about him — House Minority Leader John Boehner is not bashful about expressing himself.

In a conversation with NPR, Boehner said Republicans will seek to repeal the health care reform legislation if they win a majority in Congress in this year's midterm elections.

My immediate reaction was twofold:

• I sort of took it for granted that the Republicans in Congress wanted to repeal the health care bill. I thought they made it quite clear that they were against it.


• They've also been aiming to recapture a majority in Congress. That would allow them to control the agenda for the last two years of Barack Obama's term in office.

At this point, I am inclined to think that the Republicans are poised to narrow the gap between themselves and their Democratic colleagues, but I'm not convinced that either chamber is going to flip — yet.

So, right now, anything Boehner says about what Republicans might do if they pull off a 1994–like reversal in the midterms strikes me as being so much wishful thinking.

And then Boehner came across as just plain looney when he asserted that "at least 100 seats are in play." Never in the history of midterm elections has one party enjoyed that kind of lopsided advantage over the other.

And then ...

Boehner spoke about the special election in Massachusetts, in which Republican Scott Brown won the Senate seat that had been held for nearly half a century by Ted Kennedy. And he said this: "If Scott Brown can win in Massachusetts, there isn't a seat in America the Republicans can't win. What we're seeing every day is the playing field widen, widen beyond anything we've seen around here during my 20 years."

I find that argument harder to refute.

Next Friday, we will get the jobs report for April — and it will answer some important questions, or, at least, it will start to answer them. Will the economy see jobs added for the second straight month? Or will the March numbers turn out to be a mirage brought about by some sort of economic abnormality?

While I would welcome any good economic news, I am skeptical about the likelihood of seeing any kind of noticeable dent in the unemployment problem by the time that voters go to the polls in November. That would require many months of continuous high six–figure gains — in permanent, not temporary, employment — and I have seen no reputable forecasts that predict anything like that.

Common sense tells me the Democrats can't get credit for creating enough jobs to earn them many points with the voters this fall.

They need to be looking for ways to connect with disgruntled voters if they want to retain their majorities in 2011.

Judging a Book by Its Cover

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At some point, most of us were admonished, as children, not to judge a book by its cover.

I must admit, not all clichés made sense to me, but that one did. I guess that's because my parents encouraged me to read from an early age.

I don't remember when I heard that cliché for the first time. But I had had enough experience with books that were insufficiently summarized on their covers — as well as books that were overhyped with their covers — to know that the content of a book can be much more — or much less — than it appears to be on the outside.

The lesson is that appearances can be deceiving.

I would have thought that Republicans, of all people, had been given ample reminders of this in recent years.

The last Republican president, after all, pledged to be "a uniter, not a divider," but his approval ratings at the end of his eight-year presidency suggested that he had been a divisive influence on the country.

When the costliest natural disaster in modern times struck New Orleans 3½ years ago, the federal government's response — under the leadership of that Republican president — was criticized for being too slow and inadequate — in spite of the fact that FEMA's reputation, in the Clinton years, was one of swift, efficient reactions to disasters.

And sometimes people just plain miss the point.

I remember, about a dozen years ago, when "Schindler's List" was first shown on network TV. It was carried by NBC, and it was shown unedited, virtually uncensored and with almost no commercial interruption. Many fundamentalist and evangelical Christian groups objected to the airing of the film, complete with nudity, violence and objectionable language.

Director Steven Spielberg addressed the viewing audience before and after the film was shown. He urged parents to decide which of their children were old enough and mature enough to comprehend what was being shown, and he encouraged parents to watch the film with their children and discuss it with them afterwards.

It always seemed to me that anyone who watched the film would understand that the nudity wasn't shown gratuitously. The Nazis used nudity as a weapon — a way of demonstrating their control over their prisoners. The violence was used with no apparent discretion, just as it was throughout the Holocaust. That point was made time and time again in the film.

And coarse language has always been part of war.

Those three elements were crucial parts of the story. And, as I recall, viewers were warned that they had not been edited out of the presentation. Anyone who watched the film knew — or should have known — what to expect. But that didn't prevent some people, including a Republican congressman (now a senator) from Oklahoma, from complaining about it after the fact.

Fortunately, that congressman was forced to apologize for his remarks after coming under fire from Democrats as well as his fellow Republicans.

That incident, while perhaps not quite a case of judging a book by its cover, certainly is related.

I've been thinking about this in recent days, especially since hearing House Republican leader John Boehner tell his colleagues that no one had bothered to read the 1,100-page stimulus bill (a clip from his speech is shown above). Not surprisingly, the vote in both houses of Congress went straight down party lines. No Republicans supported it in the House, and only three Republicans supported it in the Senate — in spite of the president's plea for bipartisanship.

If Boehner is correct and no one read the stimulus bill before voting on it, then everyone in the House (and, presumably, the Senate) is guilty of judging a book by its cover. Republicans opposed it primarily because it was a Democratic initiative. Democrats supported it because it was promoted by a Democratic president.

In general practice, I would agree with Boehner and say that every bill should be read thoroughly before being voted on. But that is a standard that is seldom, if ever, followed.

And, in times of severe crisis, there usually isn't time for deliberative action. On Dec. 8, 1941, how many members of Congress were eager to take their time in discussing the pros and cons of declaring war on Japan?

Boehner has been in Congress for nearly two decades. He should need no reminders of the way things are done in Washington.

Nor should it be necessary to remind him how he and his fellow Republicans bullied and badgered congressional Democrats until many agreed to give George W. Bush the authority to order the invasion of Iraq and to support the "Patriot Act."

The haste with which the "Patriot Act" was pushed through Congress was criticized in Michael Moore's film, "Fahrenheit 9/11." In the film, Moore rented an ice cream truck and drove it through Washington while reading the legislation over a loud speaker.

But the truth is that it wasn't really handled any differently than any other legislation, although its proponents made every effort to suggest that a crisis situation existed — whether one did or not.

There should be no doubt that a crisis exists today. It is not a military crisis. It is an economic crisis. Immediate action was — and still is — needed. More will be needed in the months, if not years, to come.

Both houses of Congress chipped away at elements of the original plan before the final version was passed. Someone clearly read parts of it.

But most, like Boehner, insisted on judging the book entirely by its cover.

I have to wonder if that was a service or a disservice to the nation.