JAMES TARANTO: Judd Gregg’s Warning About Obama’s Politicization Of Census Bureau Was Prescient.

Gregg served out his Senate term retiring after the 2010 election, when another Republican, Kelly Ayotte, was elected as his successor. The Democrats eventually got their 60th senator: In April, Pennsylvania’s Arlen Specter switched parties, and in July, Minnesota’s Al Franken was seated after a prolonged recount. The Democratic supermajority lasted only seven months, until Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown was seated after winning a special election occasioned by Ted Kennedy’s death. That was long enough to push ObamaCare through over united Republican opposition.

Now ObamaCare is providing evidence that Gregg was right to worry about politicization of the census. . . .

This isn’t the first instance of political shenanigans at the Obama Census Bureau. In November 2013 the New York Post’s John Crudele reported that in the run-up to the 2012 election, the bureau put out labor statistics that, “according to a reliable source, were manipulated.” The stats showed a decline in unemployment to 7.8% in September 2012 from 8.1% in August. . . .

As for McArdle, she acknowledges that the earlier census health-insurance reports “probably overstate the true number of the uninsured” and that the new method may be better. But she asks: “Why, dear God, oh, why, would you change it in the one year in the entire history of the republic that it is most important for policy makers, researchers and voters to be able to compare the number of uninsured to those in prior years?”

Hey, good question.

With an obvious answer.