Yesterday, I noted that former Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen, in his current gig as a columnist for the Washington Post, crossed the line between making an argument and arguing dishonestly. Today, another Bush-speechwriter-turned-Post-columnist, Michael Gerson, followed in Thiessen's footsteps.

Here's Gerson:

a reconciliation strategy would both insult House and Senate Republicans and motivate them for future fights. The minority would not only be defeated on health reform but its rights would be permanently diminished -- a development that would certainly be turned against Democrats when they lose their majority.

But Gerson includes no explanation of how the use of reconciliation would “insult” Republicans, much less how it would cause the rights of the minority to be “permanently diminished.”

This is because there can be no such explanation. See, reconciliation has been used in the past, by Democrats and by Republicans. It has been used for health care. It has been used for health care by Republicans to enact the agenda of a Republican president for whom Michael Gerson worked at the time.

Let me say that again: Reconciliation was used to enact changes to health care laws when Michael Gerson was writing speeches for President George W. Bush. For Gerson to now assert that using reconciliation to pass changes to health care laws would “insult” congressional Republicans and diminish their rights is simply not honest.