Given the big news of the day, that Democrats plan to forgo the formal conference and instead ping-pong the health care bill into final legislation, I am now stuck turning to Michelle Malkin, who is citing the 2006 report from Democrats on the “death of deliberative democracy”:

The conference process in the 108th Congress is a case study in how the Republican leadership abused the Rules of the House to block Members, both Republicans and Democrats, from legislating in an informed and thoughtful manner. House-Senate conferences are a critical part of the deliberative process because they produce the final legislative product that will become the law of the land.

I want health care reform as much as the next guy, even this crap bill that I have come to accept will do more harm than good, but this isn’t the way to do it. We went through years of Republicans running Congress and twisting and turning and violating every rule and law they could. That became a catalyst to push Democrats back into power in November of 2006, and if we start acting like Republicans now then we are no better than them. It also opens our nation up to a vicious cycle that will do nothing but turn off more voters and leave more people with a feeling of disgust towards Washington.

I mentioned earlier how the Republicans will use the bypassing of conference to paint the Democrats as corrupt, and the very fact that Malkin is posting this today shows that is the route it will take. So what will happen next? Well the people will get fed up with a “culture of corruption” coming out of the Democrats and vote back in Republicans. Once the Republicans regain control then it will start all over again.

We need leaders in Washington who are willing to put it all on the line to enforce the rules that our democracy depends upon – rules that enforce transparency, openness and true legislative process. So going to conference will delay the process by a week or so, and so what if Republicans will be in the negotiations. They won’t be able to trump the Democrats vote strong hold, so let’s not engage in the very tactics we denounced as the Republicans were doing them. Instead let’s stick to our guns and morals and pass this bill the right way – using the full legislative process as it was meant to be. If you don’t then you are no better than the people you replaced in office. As matter of fact your new found hypocrisy will make you even worse than them.