You mean that "Republican governance" in which Democrats had huge majorities in both chambers of Congress for most of the 30 years between LBJ and 1994? Some "shattered" Democratic Party.

You mean that "Republican governance" in which we had a two-term Democratic president for pretty much the entire decade of the 1990s. And a one-termer in Carter. And a new Obama administration. And a Democratic Congress in both chambers starting in 2006 (taking over for a literally 50/50 Senate before that). Is that the "Republican governance" you're talking about?

Please, Joel. Don't take everything Newt Gingrich says so seriously — especially his tendency to exaggerate historic references. But Newt could have mentioned that Civil Rights legislation was a bipartisan affair, passing only because of support from the Republican Party. Democrats are really out on a limb here.

Gingrich's reading of history is somewhat eccentric. I don't think your interpretation of what he's saying is quite correct, either, Joel. (And I could quibble with some details -- for example, everyone has access to health care in the United States, but not necessarily the health care they want; that fact will not change once the federal government runs health care in America.) But I fear your conclusion may be entirely on the money.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were arguable federal interventions because several states simply refused to accord a class of citizens with equal treatment under the law. The reason those and other measures caused the Democrats such grief for the next 40 odd years was not racism simply, although there was doubtless plenty of that. Rather, it was the way in which interest group politics hardened into orthodoxy around the Democratic Party. And so what began with Lyndon Johnson's words at Howard University in 1965 -- "We seek not just freedom but opportunity. We seek not just legal equity but human ability, not just equality as a right and a theory but equality as a fact and equality as a result." -- evolved in just a few short years (under Richard Nixon's EEOC) into "affirmative action," goals, quotas, timetables, federally mandated busing, and the rest of it.

The result? A more centralize, more powerful, more politicized, far-reaching federal leviathan. The perversions of civil rights era reforms, what's more, aren't difficult to see. Here's one example, plucked from the pages of the latest issue of the Claremont Review of Books:

The incoherence of the now vast (Voting Rights Act) jurisprudence is legendary, and (Abigail) Thernstrom does a fine job detailing example after example of the absurd lengths to which courts, Congress, the Justice Department, civil rights groups, politicians, and academics have gone in their attempts to rationalize today's egregious racial politics, in which plainly partisan disputes are transformed into inflammatory racial conflicts. Things have gotten so absurd that in recent cases Leftist groups have tried to argue that virtually any Democrat—whether a minority or not—elected with black or Hispanic support should be protected by the VRA. In 2006, advocacy groups tried to argue that Martin Frost, a prominent white Democrat from Texas, should be protected as a minority candidate of choice under the Act. Although Democrats lost that one, Republican legislators rewarded them by voting in droves for the 2006 Voting Rights Act—once again demonstrating their stupidity and pusillanimity on race issues—which will likely give the Democrats exactly the outcome they sought in the Frost case. Thernstrom calls the new legislation "a Democratic Party dream" because if minorities do reliably vote Democratic, "all districts in which they played a role in electing Democrats (white or black) would likely be considered sacrosanct." The key provisions of the new VRA will not expire until 2031.

Examples such as that one lead me to think that you're right, Joel, but for the wrong reason. Health care reform may or may not be a "worthy cause" -- it's difficult to know just how this particular bill accomplish the "worthy" goals you outline. We won't know the true size and scope of the legislation for years. Don't forget, although the tax increases are immediate, the benefits won't take effect for five years. Most of the regulations won't be written for at least a year, assuming this bill survives multiple constitutional challenges in the federal courts.

But the point is, once the deed is done, it's very difficult to undo. Ronald Reagan could not undo the New Deal or the Great Society, after all -- he couldn't even shut down the Department of Education. Centralization exerts a powerful pull that few politicians, seduced by the blandishments of position, can easily resist for long.

Won't claim that. Nor will I claim it's "precisely drawn" legislation. Health care reform -- like all human endeavors, and especially like all legislative endeavors -- undoubtedly has flaws.

I'm saying the good mostly likely vastly outweighs the bad - from my perspective. And the bad, when it rears its ugly head, can and will be fixed in future legislation.

The Civil Rights legislation passed with bi-partisan support:

The House vote was 289 to 124.
80% of the Republicans voted for it.
63% of the democrats voted for it.

The Senate vote was 73 to 27.
The No votes were 21 DNC, and 6 GOP.