The evening Chicago lived

President Barack Obama promised transparency but has delivered murk, stirred by votes cast in a blur. A master of oratorical nuance who operates politically with the subtlety of a punch to the gut, Obama knows precisely what he is doing. Not so Congress, nor America. The cap-and-trade bill passed Friday by the House is a salient example. Do representatives know the legislation’s full content? Surely not. They know only that they did as Obama said they must, or else.

Welcome to Chicago in the District.

Known as the American Clean Energy and Security Act, the bill is 1,200 pages thick, fattened by a 300-page amendment dropped like an anvil on lawmakers’ desks in the wee hours Friday. At the command of Obama’s majordomo, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., the roll call proceeded. Washington has become a place where it is wise to do as Obama wishes.

So what does he wish?

In the case of cap-and-trade, he wishes for a law that, according to The Wall Street Journal, “will reach into almost every corner of the U.S. economy.” Companies that surpass carbon emissions caps will pay for permits. That cost will be passed to consumers in higher utility bills. Because coal plants produce cheap energy but spew carbons by the metric ton, electric companies will be sent fleeing from that resource. The bill will regulate not only how homes and offices are heated but how they are built. It will help dictate what cars Americans drive. It will infiltrate local zoning laws. Its reach is the stuff of divine attributes, both omnipresent and omnipotent. Only God will be in more places at once.

Are we to believe representatives knew this when they approved the bill by a 219-212 count? Serial horror movies are more credible, though less bloody. Amid the fluttering of addendum pages came a directive from Obama and his gang: Vote now and vote right or else prepare for a ride to the political backroads. Take the cannoli. Absent such muscle – some of it applied personally by the president – the bill would have fallen at the hands of conservative Democrats who sided with Republicans in fearing the implications.

That lawmakers felt a squeeze from the White House is no novelty. Lyndon Johnson applied pressure with the raw force of an anaconda. Bill Clinton and George W. Bush were glibber but not less effective. Still, the rush to vote and the legislation’s breadth of reach make Obama’s maneuvering especially troubling. Why not consider the bill for another week, or a few days? Why vote on Friday evening, with Big Media still in full drool over that really big historical moment, a twisted pop icon’s death?

The answer is plain. The transparent president prefers to move in the shadows.

House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, wearily attempted Friday to tug the legislation into the light, reading from the addendum for an hour, citing the wide range of agencies it will impact, including Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the IRS and the State Department. The bill will impose California building restrictions on the rest of the country, require an energy audit for all home sales, penalize states who refuse to accept the new structure codes, all while slamming a dagger into the heart of coal. Boehner called the legislation a “piece of s—-.” He was generous.

Resistance to roaring political tides is a rare thing in Washington, but if it’s to be found, it’s usually in the House, and so the proposal is likely to pass in the Senate, though just as likely not in its current form. Provided Wolf Blitzer can somehow pry himself from musing over the cultural impact of “Beat It,” Americans might now learn of the climate bill’s finer points. Thank the founding fathers for a bicameral legislature.

But that will not quell the flood of government expansion forced by Obama. He seeks a revolution by the power of one, smashing to pieces a free-enterprise system that stood for more than two centuries before him. He might at least do the country the kindness of casting off shrouds and allowing people to know what change he truly seeks. Or is representative democracy now in play, too?