Bob Franken

I’ve always loved the expression “Putting lipstick on a pig.” It’s the perfect way to describe an effort to gloss over something ugly. It’s certainly appropriate in the case of the decision by POTUS and his peeps to delay for a year the fundamental employer-mandate piece of Obamacare.

It’s the provision that would require businesses with 50 or more workers to provide affordable health insurance or pay a big fine for each individual. The administration’s “lipstick” was the claim that the decision to hold off until 2015 showed its “flexibility.” What was piggish was the hard-to-ignore suspicion...