The Forum

Bill Bennett, writing for National Review:

Abraham Lincoln said that among free men, there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet. I have that in mind this morning as I think of its corollary: When our elected leaders so flout the will of the people and play games in order to do so, nothing can prove as powerful as the use of the ballot — and in eight months we will show our elected leaders just that.

The election of 1994 was an elephant stampede in the wake of ethics scandals, higher taxes, more spending, and a failed health-care bill. This year, we’ve seen ethics scandals, higher taxes, more spending, and a health-care bill achieved by an upside-down view of political power and constitutional perversion — the 2010 election will be a clearing of the jungle...

Don’t take my word for it; here’s the New York Times today: “Never in modern memory has a major piece of legislation passed without a single Republican vote. Even President Lyndon Johnson got just shy of half of Republicans in the House to vote for Medicare in 1965, a piece of legislation that was denounced with many of the same words used to oppose this one.”