At least on the issue of health insurance reform, he's being a mensch. Just today, in the Senate Finance Committee markup of the awful Baucus bill, about an amendment offered by Sen. Jon Cornyn of Texas, Rockefeller said:"This is a very, very important amendment and it's a very, very bad amendment. If there's anything which is clear, it's that the insurance industry is not running this markup, but is running certain people in this markup."
That's stating the plainly obvious, of course, but these days too many Democratic members of the U.S. Congress can't face the plainly obvious, let alone call it by its name.
We were sufficiently unimpressed with Sen. Rockefeller during the late, unlamented presidency of George W. Bush, especially his weak service on the Senate Intelligence Committee. And his uncritical support of everything the coal industry in West Virginia wants to accomplish, including the decapitation of scores of formerly green mountains, has given us heartburn for years.
So it's something of a blessed relief to be able to applaud his strong advocacy for real health-care reform and, incidentally, for his unblinking frankness in calling a weasel by its proper name.
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