Farm Bill Chestnuts

While none of the presidential candidates left the campaign trail to vote on the bill, one -- Republican Sen. John McCain -- unequivocally opposed it. It may not be terribly surprising that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) hailed the bill's passage during a campaign swing through South Dakota. It's a bit more disappointing to hear Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), running on a promise to oppose politics as usual, say he applauded the bill. In Iowa last August, Mr. Obama said, "When the farm bill comes up in the Senate, I will be fighting to tell all those agribusiness lobbyists that they won't be able to count on the multimillion-dollar subsidies they always get because we're going to put family farmers first." Yesterday, he said, "With so much at stake, we cannot make the perfect the enemy of the good." On this issue, Mr. McCain, not his likely Democratic opponent, was the apostle of change.