To Deem Or Not To Deem...

That appears to be the question.

What *are* the Democrats smoking?

First of all, what does "deem" mean?

It comes from the Middle English demen, from Old English dēman; akin to Old High German tuomen to judge, Old English dōm doom, and dates before the 12th century.

As a transitive verb, it means to come to think or judge; as an intransitive verb, to have an opinion.

It connotates a deliberate decision, after weighing pros and cons, and is final: once something has been "deemed", it is so, but it is not a fact, but rather an opinion.

The Old English definition, to pronounce someones' doom, is eerily appropriate.

As usual, James Taranto in the WSJ has an interesting point or two here:

The promise of reconciliation isn't enough to persuade some representatives to set aside their objections to the Senate bill. The result is the delightfully named "Slaughter rule," under which the House, instead of approving the Senate bill, would approve a "rule" that would "deem" the Senate bill to have "passed."

In other words, they'd vote to say that the bill has been passed without actually voting on the bill: only in Washington, folks, only in Washington.

But it gets worse:

The Post reports that Democrats "suggested Republicans were trying to distract from the real discussion of what's actually in the reform bill. . . . 'If you don't want to talk about substance, [you] talk about process,' Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said." The Washington Times quotes Rep. Steny Hoyer, Pelosi's No. 2: " 'So what,' says [sic] the American people. What they're interested in is what resulted. 'What did you do for me and my family to make my life more secure and better and greater quality.' And that's what we're trying to do."

This is insanity: what the Democrats are actually saying, implicitly, is that the process of making law is subordinate to what is in the law. If what is in the law is important enough, then the process isn't important: the important thing is what is in the law.

This is insanity: they are saying that if what is in the law is important enough, then they don't need the legislative process to make it law.

Why then even have a Congress, except to perhaps keep Congressmen out of jail during their terms of office? This reduces the role of Congress to nothing. No need for advice and consent if the nominee is important enough. No need for taking the time and effort to work a law through Congress if it is important enough; no need for Congress at all except to give the President money.

And the Congressional Democrats are going along with this, bullied and brow-beaten? Not a backbone amongst them for the greatest outreach of Presidential power in the history of these United States?

Apparently not.


Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is pronouncing the doom of the Democratic Party. It will be richly, richly deserved if this goes through: this is becoming the most imperial of presidencies, far beyond Nixon. This is the active attempt to subvert the role of Congress, to turn it into a rubber-stamp body worthy of a third-rate dictatorship.

Ye compassionate and forgiving gods, take pity on this country.

I'll repeat this: I know I sound like a broken record, but we simply need to demand a higher quality of work from our government.

We simply need to demand a higher quality of government from our elected officials: ignoring process and procedure to "get the job done" is what drives dictatorships, from the viewpoint of the dictators.

At this point, 'tis apparent who was elected.