Congratulations to Senator-elect Brown and to the people of Massachusetts for overcoming politics, custom, and tradition to say “enough is enough” for the the benefit of their state and the remainder of the country.

Congressional Democrats’ decision to negotiate a final health care reform bill in secrecy is hardly a surprise following the opacity of the process throughout 2009, culminating in the 12th-hour unveiling of the final Senate bill.

Whether naïve or disingenuous, candidate Obama’s repeated claims that the debate would be fully transparent are an embarrassment of the first order. Speaker Pelosi’s claim that “[T]here has never been a more open process for any legislation” is simply Orwellian. Perhaps she’ll tell us next that “Ignorance is Strength” or, given the House and Senate bills’ mandates, prohibitions, and prescriptions, that “Freedom is Slavery.”