Dems Jumping Ship on Obama Spendathon

Since the Obamanoids introduced their budget resolution, we've been waiting quietly for the phrase "Democratic Party discipline" to be proved again an oxymoron. It has begun, notably with Evan Bayh's op ed in today's WSJ.

The article itself is completely unremarkable in every way, just like its ostensible author. Filled with the stale bromides about overspending and how governors, unlike the feds, have to balance state budgets, Bayh provides shallow analysis and bland rhetoric. He's right and boring at the same time: otameal without raisins and brown sugar, or to use the metaphor long-ago applied to Mr. Bayh, a Ken doll, well groomed and utterly uninteresting.

What Bayh does, however, is give cover to Democratic Senators, not just members of the House, to object to the profligacy that is a $1.75 trillion dollar deficit (we apologize for the understatement in a previous post). In that regard, he's the vanguard of what just might save the Republic from fiscal disaster.

We say that there's nothing notable about Bayh's piece, but we will call attention to one amazing feat. He somehow manages to imply the Obama had nothing to do with producing the omnibus. Without stating as much, it's as if the current omnibus is merely a carryover of the previous year's, not the definitive statement of policy priorities for the Obama era (when everything is a "priority"). Bayh calls on Obama to veto the bill if it makes it to his desk, even though everyone knows that the new President directed its construction and approved its massive size. Such are the machinations of a Senator who wants to burnish his national reputation without being blamed for betraying his party's most successful national standard bearer in a generation or more.

But that's how politics works among sinners. Others will doubtless join Bayh out of sheer political interest (e.g. the forty-some Dems in the House whose districts voted for McCain), and one can hope that the worst will be whittled away.