Dems surrender their claim on political virtue | Washington Examiner

Dems surrender their claim on political virtue

By: CHRIS STIREWALT

Political Editor

December 17, 2009

When the White House and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid smothered an amendment to the Democrats’ health bill that would have allowed the re-importation of prescription drugs, it was a crystal moment. (AP photo)

Liberals wanted a Democratic Party that could beat the Republican Party at its own game.

They should have been more careful what they wished for.

When the White House and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid smothered an amendment to the Democrats’ health bill that would have allowed the re-importation of prescription drugs, it was a crystal moment.

A health bill that was supposed to be the crowning achievement of the ascendant Left has become a shoddy bargain between special interests. Drug companies and health insurers are the big winners of the bill being extruded by the Senate. The only certain loser is the middle class.

Obama, who as a candidate plumped for re-importing American-made drugs from Canada, sent his Food and Drug Administration director to kill the amendment on the grounds that it would be too dangerous.

Democrats howled in 2003 when a Republican Congress and a Republican president did the same thing for the pharmaceutical industry in the Medicare prescription drug bill.

Ted Kennedy, whose memory has been invoked by Democrats at every point on this doleful march toward a final health vote, took the hide off the Bush administration for using scare tactics about drug safety.

Kennedy, speaking in support of a Boston “tea party” movement to illegally re-import drugs from Canada in December 2003, thundered: “This issue is not about the safety of prescription drugs. The administration is worried about the safety of the profits of the prescription drug industry.”

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