Is this an objective report from CNN on the reconciliation process, or an attempt to soften the field for Democrats determined to cram ObamaCare down the throats of voters who clearly don’t want it? Greg Hengler thinks it’s the latter; I tend to agree. Take a listen to the two examples of reconciliation given by CNN, and the scorecard on uses of reconciliation:

There is plenty of hypocrisy on filibusters to go around, so that point is well taken even if given a particularly one-sided treatment. Just five years ago, Democrats warned that the “nuclear option” on judicial nominations would encourage the majority to take the tyrannical act of defusing filibusters for legislation. Why didn’t CNN bother to mention that in this report?

Besides hypocrisy, what’s the point here? The Bush tax cuts were budgetary items, which is explicitly the purview of reconciliation. So, too, was welfare reform, which intended to scale back welfare spending, an early entry in entitlement reform. Both were entirely concerned with public spending — in other words, the federal budget. Neither created new government intrusion into the private sector, as ObamaCare does by remaking a sixth of the American economy. Somehow, CNN never bothers to make those distinctions.