Somebody pass a Kleenex box to Charlotte Observer’s associate editor, Jack Betts. His editorial entitled, “Have things really changed?” is soaked with crocodile tears. His lamentation on the hope that the new republican majority in North Carolina’s General Assembly would see the light after years of abuse by democrats has fallen to the wayside; bipartisanship is laid prostrate to vengeance.
It’s funny to see and hear all this teeth gnashing and wailing about bipartisanship coming from the Disturber, when none of this talk was ever heard of during the Democrat’s reign of terror.
You ask what the source of this angst is. Well, let’s hear from Mr. Betts himself:
In the House, new Speaker Thom Tillis had campaigned on a "Think jobs" platform and his ideas for opening the place to new ways of doing things were just the ticket: Focus on the economy, fix a huge budget shortfall, get North Carolinians back to work.
Except the first thing to come out of committee was not a budget matter or a jobs bill. It was a bill prohibiting enforcement of a new federal law requiring the nation's citizens to purchase health insurance or pay a penalty. Republicans rammed it through the House Judiciary Committee in a few hours, rejecting calls for a public hearing, and insisting to anyone who thought it deserved more discussion that they had had plenty of time to think about it. After all, a similar bill had been introduced in the last legislature.
Excuses of the lamest kind
This is not the lamest excuse for an argument I have heard in more than three decades of covering the legislature, but it's among the top 10. Rep. Billy Watkins, a sometimes brutal Democrat who loved to cram bitter pills down Republican throats, would have appreciated the technique.
Of course the progressives believe that just because a battle has been won, the war is over:
Former Speaker Joe Hackney, now House minority leader, has lived through several power shifts. He summed up what a lot of people were thinking as the Republican bill moved toward approval along party lines. "They said this session was about jobs, not about fighting old ideological battles," Hackney said. "I guess we now have the answer to that."
I guess the state of the union would have been completely different had the North quit after the first Battle of Bull Run. One battle a war doesn’t make. Republicans won the majority, and one of their mandates was to fight Obamacare; the war continues on.
But of course, Mr. Betts doesn’t understand that. He believes its gamesmanship:
I hope that's not the final answer. It's too early for Republicans to squander their credibility by doing unto Democrats what Democrats have for so long and so enthusiastically done unto them.
Wiser heads in the party know that. But first impressions are lasting impressions, and an early impression is that the 2011 General Assembly is off to a fast start - but some things haven't changed all that much.
North Carolina Republicans know why they were sent to Raleigh, and if they are wise they will fight Obamacare.
Read more: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/01/30/2020176/have-things-really-changed.html#ixzz1CXvQVJyk
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