Most Absurd Spin of the Month
The Wall Street Journal has a news story this morning, "Democrats' Quiet Changes Pile Up," that contends that President Obama and the Democrats in Congress are compiling an impressive list of legislative wins.
[I]ssues that once consumed Congress are now sailing into law, often without much public notice. Senior White House political adviser David Axelrod said his opponents in Congress are absorbed with defeating Mr. Obama's health-care overhaul, what he calls "the shiny object that they've chased." As a result, he contends, other measures have been left to pass into law.
Rep. Tom Price (R., Ga.), a conservative leader in the House, concedes that, in some cases, Republicans are being outflanked. "The administration is pushing so many things so rapidly it's difficult to concentrate on all of them," he said.
OK - so what's in this string of unheralded victories?
1) An extension and expansion of the S-Chip program to provide federal coverage to under 18s. OK yes, that's real.
But then this:
2) Changes to the statute of limitations rules in wage discrimination cases;
3) Extension of federal hate-crimes legislation to cover gays;
4) New federal powers to regulate tobacco;
5) New rules against oil & gas exploration in Wyoming
6) Cancelation of a weapons system.
That's it? Ten months after the most decisive Democratic electoral victory since 1964 - and that's it? Lyndon Johnson would not have felt he'd earned lunch after enacting an agenda as puny as that.
The stimulus was big, that's true. But with health stalled, climate change postponed, and the rescue of the banking system apparently abandoned by a baffled Treasury, I'd suggest that the news editors who bought this piece of spin from the Obama administration stay well away from Brooklyn. They're liable to buy its bridge.