Every time you resist Democratic health-care legislation, you make James Madison cry in heaven. “Our sense of alarm has been growing for some time,” write The New Republic’s editors, reflecting on the Republicans’ hostility to what they call, with no self-consciousness of having stolen a base, “health reform.”

The New Republic’s commitment to the idea that minority parties should try to meet majorities halfway is not deep. The magazine never complained about the Democrats’ repeated filibusters of judicial appointments, for example. The editorial expresses dismay that only nine Republicans voted for Sotomayor’s confirmation. Only four Democrats voted for Alito’s. As I recall, the New Republic was urging no votes. In 2005, the New Republic didn’t counsel Democrats to meet the Republicans halfway, or even to offer a proposal, on Social Security reform. (I don’t think any of this Democratic obstruction made my colleagues at National Review run overwrought editorials about “just how broken our political system has become”–to quote the editorial again.)

I don’t fault The New Republic for its lack of commitment to the procedural ideal its editorial endorses. Nobody should be committed to it. The editorial illustrates what’s wrong with it.

The editors write that “when it came to winning over Republicans, Baucus went more than halfway: eliminating the public option, strengthening protections against federal funding of abortions, and lowering the legislation’s price tag.” Let’s assume that the magazine is fairly characterizing what Baucus did (although it isn’t). Couldn’t a Republican reasonably conclude that the legislation, even with these concessions, moves the health-care system in the wrong direction? And if so why should he vote for it? The New Republic may well argue that this Republican assessment is incorrect, and the legislation is wise and salutary. But the argument that Republicans who disagree with The New Republic should support the legislation anyway because James Madison would have wanted them to roll over is not persuasive.