Republican Wins In Bay State

Last year at this time, the nation was celebrating the inauguration of its first African-American president. This year, that new president and his party are reeling, wondering what to do. The latest, and clearly not the last blow, came when Massachusetts voted for a Republican to fill the U.S. Senate seat of the late Edward M. Kennedy. A Republican, Scott Brown, defeated Democrat Martha Coaxley. The finger-pointing among Democrats is heating up. The euphoria of Barack Obama's 2009 inauguration appears to be very long ago.
Surprised? Only a little. It is hard to believe that the seat occupied for 47 years by Edward Kennedy now will be held by Republican Brown, who had the perfect answer when he said the seat does not belong to Senator Kennedy, but to the people. Exactly.
Meanwhile, health-care bill in the U.S. Senate is on the ropes, and maybe it should be. It represents little more than a sellout by the Democrats to the health insurance profiteers. With Senator-elect Brown now taking his Senate seat, perhaps the filibuster-proof majority in the upper house is null and void. Perhaps, too, it would be a public service to send the health-care bill to the deep six.
Health reform is a worthy goal, but the Democrats have messed it up. They failed simply to extend Medicare to the uninsured and failed to provide a public option that would have held down costs. Instead, the country would get police tactics in holding a gun to Americans' heads if they fail to ante up with a health care plan. It is called a shakedown and it is high time the Democrats in Congress and the president were called out on it. Bay State voters started the process by electing Mr. Brown.