Dumb editorial of the day

The Denver Post's editorial board managed to offend the reader on several fronts today in their condemnation of Sen. Michael Bennet's urging that the Senate pass aspects of health reform via reconciliation.

Under reconciliation, which does away with normal Senate procedures, health care reform needs only a simple majority vote.

Okay, quick point here.  Reconciliation is a normal Senate procedure.  What has been abnormal lately is the rise in the use of the filibuster to stop normal Senate procedures.  I'll let Jonathan Bernstein elaborate:

Whether it's a bad idea or not, using reconciliation would certainly not set a precedent. Reconciliation actually goes back to the Carter administration, but it was first used as a way to pass major substantive policies in 1981, during the Reagan presidency.

Let's see, what else did the Post say?

Something of this magnitude, which would make generational changes to our health care system, shouldn't be forced on Americans by one-party rule.

Huh?  But... we currently have one-party rule!  Should a one-party government not be allowed to pass substantive legislation?  Maybe I missed it, but did the Post object to the expansion of Medicare or the Iraq War authorization on the basis that it's wrong to have such decisions made under one-party rule?

Oh, one last part:

Most Americans want Congress to start over on health care reform, but it seems Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet would rather jam it down our throats.

Ignoring the message that voters sent in Massachusetts, and shedding any notion that he intends to be a moderate Democrat, Bennet is leading a pack of liberal senators who want to push through health-care reform using a process known as reconciliation.

How is it possible that Sen. Bennet, yet to receive one vote from a Coloradan, has such a tin ear for what most Coloradans and Americans want?

This is where the stupid really starts to burn.  I'll leave things to Coloradopols:

We're going to skip over the relative merits of reconciliation here, because we're more concerned with this ridiculous idea that Bennet is "ignoring the message that voters sent in Massachusetts" when Republican Scott Brown was elected to the U.S. Senate last month. Michael Bennet is the junior Senator from Colorado. We don't give two shits about whether Bennet is listening to the voters of Massachusetts, and neither should you.

That feels better.