Let’s Repeal 2010

By GAIL COLLINS
NYT

This has been a bad summer for almost everybody — celebrities, shrimpers, Washington insiders, Tea Party outsiders, people who prefer pleasant weather. So far, my list of who did well only includes the Spanish soccer team and Paul the prophetic octopus. Plus, according to Senator Jim Bunning, George Steinbrenner. The Kentucky Republican praised the Yankee owner in the Senate Finance Committee for being “smart enough to die in 2010,” when the estate tax is temporarily suspended.

Oh, that Jim Bunning — always looking on the bright side. Why aren’t there more people like that in government?

This week, Congress passed the huge reform of the financial industry that it had been working on for nearly two years. You’d think there would have been cheering from coast to coast, but the left was disheartened to discover that contrary to all previous precedent, Congress had passed a bill that was imperfect.

“Ending debate on the bill is finishing before the job is done,” said Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, the only Democrat to vote no.

(More here.)