TruthNews Commentary, August 25, 2010

Democratic Senator Max Baucus of Montana, who pushed Obamacare through the Senate, has admitted that he hasn't read the bill.

On a visit to Libby, Montana with Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, Baucus was asked by one Judy Matott, "if either of you read the health care bill before it was passed and if not, that is the most despicable, irresponsible thing."

Baucus took credit for "essentially" writing the health care bill but admitted he hadn't read it. "I don't think you want me to waste my time to read every page of the health care bill," Baucus said. "You know why? It's statutory language. We hire experts."

Baucus received a law degree from Stanford. He worked as a lawyer at the Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington, D.C. before returning to Montana to run for office. It seems like he should be the expert. Who would he hire to write the bill?

Well, from 2003 to 2008, Baucus received $3,973,485 from the health sector, including $852,813 from pharmaceutical companies, $851,141 from health professionals, $784,185 from the insurance industry and $465,750 from HMOs/health services, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Maybe the experts that Baucus is relying on are the same ones who fund his campaign.

In response to the questions raised by the large amount of funding he took from the health care industry, Baucus declared a moratorium as of July 1, 2009 on taking more special interest money from health care political action committees. Baucus, however, declined to return as part of his moratorium any of the millions of dollars he has received from health care industry interests before July 1, 2009, or to rule out a resumption of taking the same or greater health care industry contributions in the future. Baucus's new policy on not taking health care industry money reportedly still permits him to take money from lobbyists or corporate executives, who the Washington Post found continued to make donations after July 1, 2009.

Baucus's shirking of his responsibilities reeks of the same frivolity shown by Attorney General Eric Holder. After Arizona passed a law requiring stage police to enforce immigration laws, Holder went on TV to warn that the new law could lead to racial profiling. Holder also vowed to challenge the law in court. However, at a House Judiciary Committee hearing Holder admitted that he hadn't actually read the law. "I have not had a chance to. I've glanced at it. I have not read it," Holder acknowledged in response to questions from Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas).

"It's ten pages. It's a lot shorter than the health care bill, which was 2,000 pages long. I'll give you my copy of it, if you would like to -- to have a copy," Poe replied to Holder.

Holder said he's asked a team of advisers from Justice and the Department of Homeland Security to review the law for him. He said he expects to issue a pronouncement on the Arizona law "relatively soon."

Like Baucus, Holder is a lawyer. He was appointed Attorney General because he's expected to be an expert at the law. Yet he refers a law that he plans to challenge in court to his advisors rather than read it himself. But that doesn't stop him from making pronouncements on TV about the law. That may be why Holder doesn't feel any need to enforce existing immigration law -- because he hasn't read the existing laws and doesn't know what they say.

The lack of reading among the elite has become a pernicious trend. Commentator Paul Greenberg has written about the disappearance of books from the libraries. He quotes from an NPR feature:

The periodical shelves at Stanford University are nearly bare. Library chief Helen Josephine says that in the past five years, more engineering periodicals have been moved online, making their print versions pretty obsolete -- and books aren't doing much better. ... In 2005, when the university realized it was running out of space for its growing collection of 80,000 engineering books, administrators decided to build a new library. But instead of creating more space for books, they chose to create less. The new library is set to open in August with 10,000 engineering books off the shelves -- a decrease of more than 85 percent from the old library ... eventually, there won't be any books on the shelves at all.

Its not surprising that this is occurring at Max Baucus's alma mater. Maybe it was Stanford that taught him not to read.

In his satirical article, Greeberg invents a mock history lesson taught in the future to discourage people from reading:

Throughout recorded time, and probably since the end of the Neolithic Age, there have been three layers of humanity, the High and the Low and the Classless. The first two work together, giving and receiving direction, exploiting and being exploited, consistent in their role, but the third is the most dangerous to the established order of any society, for they have no loyalty but to their own intellectual delusions. They may differ over ideas but all share one trait -- an antisocial addiction to reading, for which purpose they have used a variety of instruments through the ages, of which books, because of their seductive tactile and olfactory attraction, are the most insidious. In the beginning was the word, and it is the root of all evil, which flowered into books.

People like Baucus and Holder seem to have taken this lesson to heart. They're either too lazy or too stupid to actually read the laws that they pass and enforce. It's no wonder that the country is in such a mess. Did anyone read the trillion dollar stimulus bill?

Judy Matott is right. That is the most despicable, irresponsible thing.