Pollsters Doug Schoen and Pat Caddell, both Democrats, took on President Obama in a column in the Wall Street Journal last week, criticizing him for not being true to his campaign promise to unify the country.

“Rather than being a unifier,” they say, “Mr. Obama has divided America on the basis of race, class, and partisanship.”

They don’t see Republicans as any better. They claim that Republicans have just followed the administration in trying to exploit hot buttons of race and class.

“….the Republican leadership has failed to put forth an agenda that is more positive, unifying, and inclusive.”

Although it seems so warm and cuddly to consider the idea of national “unity”, what does this really mean? Particularly, what does it mean in a free country?

Isn’t the whole point and beauty of freedom that we recognize differences among us as natural and that we view debate, differences of viewpoint, and dissent as healthy? Doesn’t the idea of “unity” – of uniformity – conjure up images of exactly what this country is not about?

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As we write this short essay, we are being promised by Nancy Pelosi that the health care bill will be posted online so that we and those who will “deem” it already to have been enacted can actually read it. This online posting has been repeatedly postponed so that the Congressional Budget Office could score it for its 10-year cost. That exercise, which went on behind closed doors, has been tainted by secret deals, and new stealth taxes slipped in at the last minute without disclosure or debate and are based on assumptions provided by the House leadership which the CBO is required to follow. Only this weekend will the 535 members of Congress and the American people be given an opportunity to see what is in the surprise package consisting of over 2700 pages of text. They will have 72 hours to read it before they “deem” it to be the law of the land. Presumably, they have completed the Evelyn Woods speed-reading course. We believe that millions of Americans will “deem” those Members of Congress who actually participate in this farce to be unworthy of further service. Of course, they, unlike their Congresspersons, will actually have to vote.

We make no secret about our negative view of this legislation as bad public policy. But something far more important is at work here. We would rather have the House pass the bill in normal fashion even if only by a tiny margin (as they did with their first version in November 2009) and have it properly enacted into law, than to use trickery and deceit to get their way.

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