The Wall Street Journal blog “Best of the Web” suggests that Move-On.Org’s latest fund appeal is hypocritical. Why? Well, the progressive organization is now promoting the version of health care reform that finally passed, although during the endless debates and bill-drafting it opposed the same bill, saying…

“America needs real health care reform–not a massive giveaway to the insurance companies. Senator Bernie Sanders and other progressives should block this bill until it’s fixed.”

Is Move-On talking out of both sides of its metaphorical mouth? Is this proof the organization has no integrity, or cannot be trusted? Hardly. The version of health care reform Move-On wanted is gone, at least for now—poof! Vanished! The law that is left, the law it once opposed, is what is left, at least if you are a committed Left advocacy group. Of course Move-On is supporting it.

This isn’t hypocrisy; it’s not even close. (To be fair, blogger James Taranto never actually uses the word “hypocrisy,’ but that is clearly his complaint.) How can one honestly support an option you once rejected and condemned? When it is the best option left:

“I’m starving…can I have a hamburger, please?”

“Our special is bratwurst.”

“Yuck. I hate bratwurst!”

“It’s all we have left in the kitchen.”

“I’ll have the bratwurst, please.”

Move-On. Org is just having its bratwurst. So would I. So, I suspect, would Taranto. It’s not hypocrisy if you have no choice. Whatever one wants to say about Move-On, (and when I’m not trying to be even-handed and ideologically neutral and have had a couple Coronas, I may want to say a lot), the organization has integrity.