"Powerful Democrats" subjected a top Obama administration health-care official "to withering criticism" last week, notes Walter Russell Mead. When Gary Cohen, head of the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight, appeared before the Senate Finance Committee, chairman Max Baucus of Montana and Sens. Ron Wyden (Ore.), Bill Nelson (Fla.) and Maria Cantwell (Wash.) "tore into him."

The hearing didn't attract much journalistic attention; the only stories we could find about it were from...