Christmas week, and we have much to be thankful for in this country. Even so, we can’t miss the solemn fact that more than health-care, gigantic though that is, was at stake in the vote-by-dark victory of Senator Harry Reid. Senator Judd Gregg has told National Review that we are now under a parliamentary system that allows supermajorities to usher in radical change without checks and balances:

 Harry Reid’s health-care bill “was purchased,” says Gregg. “Our system of checks and balances is gone. We now have a government that lurches with great speed even though our system is founded upon incremental change.” And don’t hope that the House stops the runaway train, he says. “I think the House is ideologically even further to the Left than the Senate. There are many people there who are committed to taking us down the road toward nationalization.”