Gag Order

National Review's Jonah Goldberg's best-selling book Liberal Fascism carries a title designed to provoke. You'd think liberals would try to prove him wrong -- but some seem intent on proving him right.

Take the gag order that the Obama administration recently slapped on insurance company Humana, which had sent information to policyholders warning that health care proposals being debated in Congress could lead to cuts in Medicare Advantage.

A recent Congressional Budget Office analysis backs up that claim. Nevertheless, the Department of Health and Human Resources has launched an investigation of Humana and ordered it to cease and desist such mailings. Just for good measure, the administration warned other insurers not to send similar letters.

After 9/11 Ari Fleisher, the Bush White House spokesman, said in a news conference that people should "watch what they say." The administration was promptly denounced from the rooftops for "stifling dissent." (Fleisher actually was criticizing both liberal comedian Bill Maher and conservative John Cooksey, a Republican congressman who said anyone wearing "a diaper on his head" should be investigated. The facts soon became irrelevant.)

Now that the Obama administration actually is stifling dissent, most of the erstwhile defenders of "speaking truth to power" are as quiet as church mice. We wish we could say we are surprised.