W.H. warns Dems: Don't flip-flop (Obamacare)

Two senior administration officials said the White House is telling Democrats reconsidering their support for health care reform that they will pay the price for their original vote no matter what happens, so they should reap the political benefits of actually passing a law.

There are 59 senators and 216 House members who put themselves on the record in support of the Democratic plan for health care reform. And the way the White House and Democratic leaders see it, they have little choice but to vote for it again: Think John Kerry, and his immortal words about an Iraq war appropriations bill – that he was for it before he was against it.

“Flip-flopping is dangerous in this business,” said a senior Senate Democratic aide familiar with the strategy.

Speaking in the East Room of the White House to a room full of doctors and nurses, many in hospital scrubs and white coats, President Barack Obama did not touch on such political realities. Instead, he signaled the kind of personal involvement in pushing the legislation over the next few weeks that has been absent – at least publicly - since the upset victory of Sen. Scott Brown in the Massachusetts special election in January ended the Democrats’ filibuster-proof majority and put health care in doubt.

Kicking off what he promised would be an aggressive campaign, Obama called on Congress to schedule a vote, saying the time for talking is done. And without saying the word "reconciliation," Obama made it clear that he¹ll pass legislation with only Democratic votes if necessary.

The president laid down a timetable that would wrap up the bill before the Easter break in Congress as well as a Democratic line of attack: We’re not passing health care in a backroom deal because it has already passed in both the House and the Senate under the traditional rules. All that’s left now is the cleanup.

“The American people want to know if it’s still possible for Washington to look out for their interests and their future,” Obama said. “I don¹t know how this plays politically, but I know it’s right. And so I ask Congress to finish its work, and I look forward to signing this reform into law.”

Congressional leaders continued Wednesday to lock down a strategy on the process, timing and substance of the bill, aides said. The next major step will be to send the reconciliation bill to the Congressional Budget Office for a cost estimate, which could take days or even weeks to finalize.

House leaders, meanwhile, started the process of smoothing opposition to a finished package. Speaker Nancy Pelosi met Wednesday with New York Democrats in her office off the House floor to assuage concerns about the Medicaid expansion

Since New York already subsidizes more people under Medicaid than most states, it is slated to get less federal aid than states that will be forced under the bill to expand their Medicaid rolls to people with incomes 133 percent above the poverty line - a standard New York already meets.

And quietly, behind the scenes, White House officials and leaders began the critical task of shoring up support.

The House will be asked to cast two more votes – the first on the Senate bill, which contains many elements that liberal members detest, and the second on a package of fixes. The Senate will only have to vote on the second bill through reconciliation, which allows passage with a simple majority rather than 60 votes.

As Democratic leaders urge lawmakers not to reverse their initial vote for the bill, they need to make the opposite case to the 39 House members who opposed reform on the first go around. Neera Tanden, a former health policy aide in the Obama administration, laid out the pitch in a colunm posted Wednesday on The New Republic website.

"As a matter of policy, the Senate bill is a moderate Democrat's dream," Tanden wrote. "House moderates have to ask themselves, apart from political considerations, how can they now vote against a bill that senators Lincoln, Lieberman, Landrieu and Bayh have all voted for?"

Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas said she doesn’t buy the argument on flip-flopping.

She is perhaps the Senate’s most endangered Democrat, facing a primary challenge from the left and, if she survives that, a general election fight from the right. She drew a distinction between her vote in favor of the Senate bill and her opposition to the reconciliation measure.

“I wouldn¹t be voting against the Senate health care bill,” Lincoln said.

“The Senate bill will be what the House passes. Ive been supportive of the Senate bill.” The reconciliation measure “would be a whole other bill,” she said.

Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, who has remained undecided on the reconciliation measure, said the argument doesn¹t hold merit because lawmakers aren¹t voting on the same bill. But, she added, lawmakers need to stop looking at the issue through such a political lens and at how their actions will play “politically.”

“You know, there is a substance here that is really important,” she said.

“I’m just so sick of this place and it all being about power and elections and not about people out there. We really need to get beyond the ‘politically’ part.”

Sen. John Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) said he expected the White House to argue to Democrats that they can¹t turn against their vote now.

“It sells itself,” Rockefeller said. “That is an argument I am comfortable with because it needs to be made.”

Distrust of the Senate is a problem for some House members and could make it hard for any Democrat to vote for the Senate bill unless he or she has absolute confidence that Majority Leader Harry Reid and the president will apply their changes through the reconciliation process.

“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me 290 times, shame on me,” said New York Rep. Anthony Weiner, an always quotable backer of the most sweeping reforms

“Most things the Senate said they would do, they haven¹t done. There are too many deficiencies in the Senate bill for us to go on faith.”

Democrats, no matter how they vote, are expected to come under Republican attack.

House Republicans announced their own latest effort to pressure potential swing votes: “Project Code Red,” which will highlight everything the Democrats say on the issue of health care and make sure GOP candidates running against them back home respond.

And Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) predicted “every election in America this fall will be a referendum on this issue.”

The political dynamics put lawmakers like New York Rep. Michael Arcuri, who voted for the initial House bill, in a bind. He expressed frustration with the Senate measure and gave every indication that he’s prepared to vote against the final package; his only caveat was that he hadn’t seen the finished language.

“What I have seen so far, I don’t like the bill,” Arcuri said. “The House bill really accomplished something. It was a tough vote, but I thought it was the right thing to do. I don’t see how the Senate bill will do the kind of things I want to do with health care. It¹s not what I¹m going to support at this point.”

Arcuri complained that the Senate bill lacks a public option, fails to dissolve an antitrust exemption for health insurance companies and won’t allow the federal government to negotiate drug prices under Medicare. He also opposes the tax on high-end health care plans.

His distaste for the Senate bill is hardly unique, but many of his House colleagues signaled a willingness to back an imperfect product over no product at all - a calculation the White House is counting on, in part, because flipping now would be politically perilous.

In the weeks ahead, undecided Democrats will be asked to weigh their objections to parts of the final package against a historic opportunity to provide health insurance to as many as 30 million Americans who currently lack it.

Connecticut Rep. Joe Courtney, an outspoken opponent of the Senate¹s tax on high-end health care plans, doesn¹t like seeing the so-called Cadillac tax in a finished bill. But he¹s not sure that this alone is reason to vote against a final product.

“Obviously, this is a generational moment,” Courtney said. “It¹s a long time ago before the forces built up again. So this is nothing to be trifled with in terms of that opportunity.”

First-term Virginia Rep. Gerry Connolly acknowledged that the bill he will have to vote on represents what he called “³the last best chance, and I’m very aware of that, very, very aware of that. So I certainly feel that burden.”

“Could I have a different vote on this bill than I had on the previous one? Absolutely,” said Connolly, who voted for the initial House bill.

“It’s a different bill. Am I likely to be a changed vote? Well, we’ll have to see. I believe we need health care reform. I am passionately committed to that. I think it¹s a terrible missed opportunity to let this slip through our fingers.”

Obama Keeps All-Democratic Health Care Option Open

Newsmax.com

Thursday, 18 Feb 2010 06:48 PM

The White House signaled Thursday that an aggressive, all-Democratic strategy for overhauling the nation's health care system remains a serious option, even as President Barack Obama invites Republicans to next week's televised summit to seek possible compromises.

The administration's stance could set the stage for a political showdown, with Democrats struggling to enact the president's top domestic priority and Republicans trying to block what many conservatives see as government overreach.

A senior administration official said Democratic congressional leaders have nearly finished efforts to reconcile two health bills, which the House and Senate passed separately last year with practically no Republican help. Obama will use their legislation to expand coverage to some 30 million and require most Americans to carry insurance as the basis for a proposal that the White House will post online by Monday, three days before the Feb. 25 summit, said the official.

He spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private negotiations.

Obama says he is open to Republican ideas for changing the health care system. But many Democrats seriously doubt GOP leaders will support compromises that could draw enough lawmakers from both parties to create a bipartisan majority.

If next week's meeting does not break the logjam, congressional Democrats will face a tough choice. They can pass a highly diluted health care bill or nothing at all, which would send them into the November elections with a high-profile failure despite their control of Congress and the White House.

Or they can use an assertive and contentious tactic, known as reconciliation, to pass a far-reaching health care bill in the Senate without having to face GOP delaying tactics. Democrats lost their ability to block filibusters when Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown won a Senate seat last month.

Both parties have used reconciliation rules in the past. But Republicans have practically dared Democrats to do so on health care, citing polls showing significant opposition to the legislation.

It's unclear whether the House or Senate can muster the necessary votes. Democrats, who now hold 255 of the House's 435 seats, drew only one GOP ally when the House passed its health care bill, 220-215, last November. Since then, one Democrat who voted for the bill has resigned, one has died and a third plans to leave office Feb. 28. Moreover, changes meant to meet Senate demands could peel away enough liberals on one end, and party centrists on the other, to cause the revised bill to fail.

In the Senate, Democrats control 59 seats, and reconciliation rules require only a simple majority. But several Democratic senators have expressed discomfort or outright opposition to using the rules to thwart filibusters on health care.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Thursday that Obama plans to have a health care proposal that "will take some of the best ideas and put them into a framework" ahead of the Feb. 25 summit. The White House has invited Republicans to bring their own proposals, but GOP leaders have treated the event warily at best.

House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio said Thursday, "a productive, bipartisan conversation on health care starts with a clean sheet of paper." His office labeled next week's meeting the "summit of all fears."

But at least one moderate Republican was optimistic about the session.

Sen. Susan Collins of Maine said if the summit succeeds, a bipartisan bill could be put together and passed within six weeks. "My advice to our Republican leadership is we should view this as a good faith effort and go in there with a consensus list of provisions that we could support and that would make a difference," she said in an interview with The Associated Press.

House Democrats are insisting on several changes to the bill the Senate passed on Christmas Eve, before Brown was elected to succeed the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy. The changes include reducing or eliminating a proposed tax on generous employer-provider health plans, and eliminating a Medicaid subsidy aimed only at Nebraska.

Also, some House Democrats who oppose legalized abortion are demanding that the Senate's more permissive language on the topic be replaced by the House provisions. It was unclear Thursday how that might be achieved.

The cost of the legislation — about $1 trillion over 10 years — would be paid for through Medicare cuts and a series of tax increases. House officials said Democratic leaders are not yet pressing wary colleagues to back a health care bill under the special procedural rules. That could happen soon, however, if next week's summit fails to produce a bipartisan breakthrough.

House congressional aides said they expect leaders such as Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to tell colleagues that using all their parliamentary muscle to pass a health care bill — even if it triggers withering criticism from the right — is preferable to facing voters empty-handed this fall.

——

Associated Press writer Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar in Washington and Clarke Canfield in Portland, Maine, contributed to this report.

© Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

How to Blame Bush: Lie

Has this happened to you? You start reading an article written by a Democrat, wondering if it is just possible that he has a legitimate point. But one or two paragraphs in, you find yourself so deep in outrageously false premises that you wonder if you share the same planet. How do they manage to pack so many falsehoods into so few words?

Case in point: James Carville. He wrote recently in the Financial Times.

Democrats would not be playing the blame game with one another for the [Massachusetts] loss or for the healthcare [sic] debacle if they had only pointed fingers at those (or in this case, the one) who put Americans (and most of the world) in the predicament we're in: George W. Bush.

OK so far. James is a political consultant, and Blame Bush is a political strategy. Who am I to second-guess Mr. Carville on a matter in which he is expert? He helped Bill Clinton win the presidency twice. And he helped Ehud Barak win in Israel. Can't say I like his picks, but his picks did win.

But James did not stop there. He went from advice mode to I-live-on-a-different-planet mode in one paragraph.

It is under his disastrous tenure in the White House that health insurance premiums nearly doubled for the average American family and the number of uninsured skyrocketed. It was under Mr Bush that the deficit spiralled out of control as we fought an unnecessary and endless $3,000bn war in Iraq and enacted the largest unfunded entitlement programme in history with the Medicare prescription drug benefit. It was Mr Bush's economic team that worshipped at the Church of Deregulation and was asleep at the wheel as banks and insurance companies became too big to fail.

Wow. Here is my tabulation of his claims regarding the Bush presidency.

• Private health insurance costs doubled, growing way too fast.
• The number of uninsured skyrocketed.
• Federal deficits spiraled out of control.
• The Iraq war was unnecessary.
• The Iraq war is endless.
• The Iraq war cost $3 trillion -- way too much.
• The Medicare prescription program was the largest unfunded entitlement in history.
• Bush deregulated like crazy.
• Bush was "asleep at the wheel" regarding financial system oversight.

By my count, that is nine falsifiable claims in three sentences. Time for some fact-checking.

Private health care spending grew an average of 6.3% per year from 2001 through 2008. That is an eight-year increase of 63%, not a doubling. More importantly, private health spending grew faster before Bush. In the last three years under Clinton, 1997-2000, it grew 7.9%, 7.1%, and 6.7%, respectively. In the 1980s, it grew 11.3% per year. In the '70s, 12.1%. (HHS Centers for Medicare and Medicaid. See NHE tables, Table 1.) In short, growth in private health care spending did not "double" under Bush, and in fact, it was lower under him than previously.

How about those uninsured? We have the numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Do you see any "skyrocketing" in this graph? It looks to me like the number of uninsured has been about 15% of the population for the last twenty years. Inasmuch as the absolute numbers grew, it was because population grew. No skyrocketing at all -- just a flat percentage of the population both pre-Bush and post-Bush.

Did deficits spiral out of control? Here are the surpluses/deficits during the Bush presidency, as percentages of GDP (U.S. Statistical Abstract, Table 457):

• 2001: +1.3%
• 2002: -1.5%
• 2003: -3.5%
• 2004: -3.6%
• 2005: -2.6%
• 2006: -1.9%
• 2007: -1.2%
• 2008: -3.2%.

Do you see a spiral there? In fact, deficits declined from 2004 through 2007, the years most aligned with budgets passed by Republican Congresses. The average over all eight years was 2.0% of GDP. That is below the previous four-decade (1961-2000) average of 2.2% of GDP. (For comparison, the 2009 deficit was 9.9% of GDP.)

Was the Iraq war unnecessary? I cannot justify a war in a sentence or two. See my 2008 article, "Who Lied About Iraq?" In that article, I conclude, "The invasion of Iraq was arguably the most justified case of military action the US has ever taken in its history, based on national defense, validated intelligence and legal authority, not to mention morality."

As for the Iraq war being "endless," tell that to President Obama. Unlike Germany, Japan, Korea, and Kosovo, to name a few previous U.S. war zones, the Iraq war zone will be free of U.S. combat troops this year, and of all U.S. troops in 2011. The Marines are already out. Seven years is not "endless."

Did the war cost too much? And specifically, did it cost $3 trillion? Defense spending under George W. Bush as a fraction of GDP was lower than any year between 1941 and 1994. Bush's peak year was near Jimmy Carter's lowest year. Bush took defense spending from a historically low 3% of GDP in 2000 to a still historically low 4%.

The Iraq war's cost in absolute dollars is difficult to estimate; the government does not report war spending separately from all other defense spending. But all spending on national defense from 2003 through 2008 was $3.0 trillion (U.S. Statistical Abstract, Table 461). Even a generous accounting would attribute only about 25% of that spending to Iraq (that's 1% of GDP increase). Let's call it $0.75 trillion through 2008. Pad that already-padded number to take us through 2011, and you might get into the neighborhood of $1 trillion.

Deborah White, a self-described "journalist and writer specializing in liberal politics, and progressive issues," tried a bottom-up estimate for Iraq war costs and came up with $0.8 trillion "spent and approved" through mid-2009, or below my generous estimate of $1 trillion. In short, $3 trillion is not only made up; it is far-fetched.

Was George Bush the pope of the Church of Deregulation? Sarbanes-Oxley, about the most intrusive pile of corporate regulations since the New Deal, was signed into law by President Bush in 2002. It was enacted largely in response to the Enron affair, which occurred during Bill Clinton's presidency.

By the numbers, whether federal spending on banking regulation or pages in the federal register, President Bush added to the regulatory powers of the federal government. If you can find what was deregulated by him, specifically, please let me know.

Perhaps Mr. Carville mixed up Bush and Clinton. If he was thinking of the "repeal" of Glass Steagall, that happened in 1999 -- passed in the Senate by a vote of 90-8 and signed into law by President Clinton. Senators voting for that change included Chuck Schumer, John Kerry, Chris Dodd, John Edwards, Dick Durbin, Tom Daschle, and Joe Biden.

As for being asleep at the wheel, let's see what the right-wing New York Times wrote in 2003, a good four to five years before the housing crisis and the Freddie and Fannie failure.

The Bush administration is rightly pushing for the Treasury Department to regulate the two giants, along with the network of federal home loan banks. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae provide financing to lenders by creating a secondary market for mortgages.

And who put a stop to that proposed regulation? Democrats like Barney Frank.

The only semi-truthful statement in James Carville's lie-loaded paragraph is that Bush enacted prescription coverage under Medicare. That is true. But let's be honest. The Democrats were against it not because it expanded entitlements. They were against it because it did not expand them enough. We see now what Democrats do with entitlements when they have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.

Look again at Mr. Carville's phrase, "the largest unfunded entitlement programme in history." Note the word, "unfunded." Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid were certainly larger entitlement programs. What really bothers James and the Democrats is that Bush did not raise taxes also.

Here is an example of how Democrats "fund" a new entitlement program: assume tax increases of $507 billion and Medicare cuts of $404 billion over ten years. On Mr. Carville's planet, assuming is the same as funding. Too bad that doesn't work out so well on our planet.

By my count, of nine claims in a single paragraph, James Carville told eight lies and dissembled once. That is the nub of the case. To blame Bush for everything that didn't go well in the last decade, you have to lie.

Question for Mr. Carville: You do know we have the internet now and can check this stuff out pretty quickly, don't you?

The Coming Democrat Counteroffensive

AmericanThinker.com
January 20, 2010
By Steve McCann

The unexpected election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts, driven equally by opposition to the Obama agenda and an inept Democratic candidate, will fuel optimism that Republicans and conservatives will recapture the Congress. However, with ten months to go before the midterm election, this confidence is misplaced and misguided, and it will play into the hands of the Democrat strategists.

Success in taking over the Congress from the entrenched Democrats will require an understanding of their tactics and a unified strategy on the part of all conservatives, libertarians, and independents who recognize why the election is so pivotal. The Democratic machine will pull out all the stops to maintain control of Congress, particularly in light of the Brown victory.

The 2010 midterm elections will be nationalized, and money spent by the Democrats and their allies will be staggering, as will the level of vitriol and mudslinging. Anything and everything must be expected.

The current Democratic leaders will rely on two assumptions: 1) that the electorate, after decades of peace, prosperity, and lack of civic education, is generally ignorant and apathetic towards the machinations in Washington, D.C.; 2) that gerrymandering, skewed election laws, and political financing regulations -- and most importantly, the fragmented nature of the opposition -- will greatly benefit the Democrats. The Left will be confident in the reelection of their own congressmen in sufficient number to maintain control of the levers of power in Washington.

Either rationale stems from one central point: citizen apathy. However slowly, that indifference is beginning to change, as noted by the polls showing a resurgence of conservatism, particularly as reflected by the tea party movement. But a crusade based on emotion and held together only by opposition to single issues cannot succeed in achieving the monumental change necessary to save the country.

At this point in January 2010, the tenuous, multi-faceted coalition that makes up the grassroots resistance to the radical Obama agenda comprises those opposed to illegal immigration, amnesty, excessive government spending, abortion, gay marriage, taxes, gun control, heath care reform, free trade, foreign entanglements, Wall Street, and those who desire to see every Republican politician hanged. Each group expects the other to agree fully with its signature issue.

It is for that reason that the Left treats the conservative movement with such disdain, knowing full well that this coalition has a potential internal time bomb which can explode prior to any major election. All the Democrats have to do is light the fuse.

Everyone is aghast that the Democrats and the liberal media have employed a base and vile vulgarism not only to describe the activities of those who are sincerely concerned for the country's future, but also to denigrate the individuals, their motives, appearance, and social status. This tactic is used because it works.

It works because it distracts from the real issues by fomenting discussions about what is said and forcing a response to an absurd accusation or portrayal. The pundits, politicians, and leaders on the right feel obligated to respond and deny the allegations, thus giving them more credibility and allowing the Left to find ways to make even more outrageous charges, thus perpetuating the cycle.

The Left must personalize every policy disagreement or election by denigrating their opposition, thus steering all conversation away from what is most important: the future of the United States as either a capitalist or socialist country.

A codicil to this strategy is to abet the potential fragmentation of the conservative alliance by falsely accusing an opposition candidate of being less than committed to a particular policy, thus creating an emphasis on the importance of a single issue for one or the other of the myriad groups within the movement. Many within these aggregations are hypersensitive and on constant alert for any perceived slight from their fellow coalition members.

Many have proffered the theory that the Left resorts to name-calling and hyperbole because they cannot defend their socialist and secular philosophy. While it is true that they must resort to emotion to sell their theories to the masses, the political strategy to achieve power is fragmenting the opposition by questioning their motives, accusing them of hypocrisy or criminal and unethical behavior, and by using election laws to skew close elections against them. As long as this strategy works, the Left does not have to defend its philosophical positions.

The only way to defeat the Left is to stop playing by their rules.

First, it must be understood that the enemy we are fighting, the Liberals or the Left, makes up 20% of the country's population. Moderates are 36%, and conservatives are more than 40%. Based on that breakdown, one might assume that something like 67% of moderates lean to the conservative view. Thus, 64% of the citizenry are potential voters against what is happening in Congress and the White House.

Why does the conservative coalition allow 20% of the people to dictate how or why campaigns are conducted? Why do conservatives still curry favor from the once-mainstream media, who in a marketing death wish choose to appeal to this same 20%? Why, within this alliance, is there so much suspicion among each faction? And lastly, why is it not understood that only by the in-place organization of the Republican Party, under conservative control, can the current tide in Washington be reversed?

Conservatives must discipline themselves to stop being so thin-skinned about what the media, bloggers, and pundits on the Left say about them. These immature and self-righteous blowhards must be ignored and allowed to talk among themselves without any response from anyone on the right. The only response necessary is to correct or rebut immediately and firmly the mistakes and misrepresentations of the once-mainstream media.

The Tea Party Movement, instead of reveling in its declared independence, should immediately either join forces with or take over the local Republican Party establishment in its respective county or state.

Each person has one political or social issue that is of the highest importance to him. Regardless of what it is, everyone must now realize that without individual freedom and liberty, plus a limited government -- all of which are now under massive assault by the Obama administration -- it matters little what that issue is.

Everyone must stop the absurd belief that one should vote for the person and not the party. The lesson of the passage of the Health Care Reform Act in Congress should never be forgotten: There is no such thing as a "conservative Democrat" once installed in Congress. There is a major difference between the parties. Conservatives can influence what happens in the Republican Party; they cannot do so in the Democratic Party.

Above all, everyone in the current coalition opposing what is happening in Washington, D.C. must unite behind one theme and put all differences aside. That cause should be this: For future generations, the United States must remain the dominant global economic force able to underwrite being the unrivaled military power in the world. The destructive path the current government in Washington has chosen will relegate our country to long-term economic stagnation and secondary world status.

The upcoming midterm election is one of the most pivotal in history. Despite the current optimism surrounding the outcome of the November 2010 election, the conservative movement will not triumph unless it unites, remains disciplined, and above all, understands and learns from its adversaries.

The overwhelming and unexpected victory in Massachusetts should not be allowed to lead to complacency or overconfidence. The Democrats and the Obama administration will be more determined than ever to hold on to the power necessary to transform the United States into their image.

The Democrats Start to Fracture

AmericanThinker.com
By J. Robert Smith
January 21, 2010

In the coming weeks and months, the best political spectator sport around might not be Democrats versus Republicans or conservatives versus liberals, but Democrats of all stripes turning on one another.

Other than demagoguery, what Democrats are most accomplished at is fratricide (think back to the '60s and '70s). In the wake of Scott Brown's hosing of Martha Coakley, the Democrats are about to have a good old-fashioned civil war. Pity for them; bully for America.

The Democrats are dividing roughly along these lines: left ideologues against pols, the latter being those congressional Democrats who like their jobs and don't intend to wrap themselves in the European Union flag and jump off a craggy cliff into the Potomac.

It's Pelosi and Frank and their ilk versus Heath Shuler and his ilk. But given Tuesday night's win for Scott Brown in deep blue Massachusetts, it may be more than self-styled Democratic moderates who choose to defect. A few liberals may join in, too.

President Obama is showing every sign of being a cliff-jumper. Word out of the White House is that he plans to go on a populist offensive. In other words, he aims to demagogue anyone and anything in an attempt to divert voters' attention from his utterly woeful, ideologically blind performance to date. And did I mention that under the cover of a hate, resentment, and envy campaign, Mr. Obama and his chief congressional lieutenants, the envenomed Nancy Pelosi and the passive-aggressive Harry Reid, will still scheme to foist statism on America?

While the President's bravado may warm the hearts of Huffington Post and Daily Kos denizens, and while he may win plaudits from the Davids (Broder, Gergen, and Brooks) and the New York Times (among other liberal mouthpieces) for his supposed shrewdness, plenty of work-a-day congressional Democrats aren't going to enlist in a lemmings' march into the sea.

Self-preservation is a powerful instinct. The Coakley upending is the fork in the road for Democrats who are more enamored of themselves than stinky left-wing orthodoxy. The marker at the road's fork points right, toward the middle ground. It's where these Democrats know they must go if they are to stand a prayer of retaining their seats in November.

With every passing day, expect a few, and then lots of sobered Democrats to take the road right, regardless of the sharp disapproval of Pelosi and Reid or the threats of the White House Capone crew.

Congressional members peeling away from their party's failing president is nothing new in Washington annals. LBJ and Richard Nixon could have given you earfuls.

But left-wing activists and fundraisers and money-givers aren't going to take defections lightly. While keeping guns trained on Mr. Obama to ensure his fealty, expect left-wingers to turn other guns on congressional Democrats cheeky enough to scuttle ideology in favor of survival.

Nowadays, the left isn't so much a movement as it is a death pact. If you've taken its money or accepted its campaign ground troops or benefited from its uncoordinated expenditures -- and most Democrats have -- then you're on the hook. It's like the mafia: Once you're made, you can't be unmade. Woe to the good fella or gal who wishes to part company.

Don't expect defecting Democrats to go gentle into the night. When the left opens fire on them, expect them to fire back. It's to their advantage. Positioning will be critical at this point on to the defectors. They'll need to demonstrate to voters that they've separated themselves from the dead weight that are Obama's health care legislation and his cap-and-tax and immigration reform aims (only liberals can turn "reform" into a dirty word).

This Democratic civil war means that the president's health care reform legislation is as dead as the Articles of Confederation. Cap-and-tax proposals based on specious climate change arguments and economy-killing provisions are already floundering, and they will go the way of the dinosaur if the president, Pelosi, and Reid push them harder. Immigration reform is a sticky-wicket. Attempting to liberalize immigration laws at a time when the economy is hurting and unemployment hovers around ten percent isn't the swiftest move.

Watch to see what higher-profile Democratic senators like Evan Bayh and Blanche Lincoln do. Throw Jim Webb in the mix as well. Unlike the wretched Ben Nelson or the oily Mary Landrieu, who have so conspicuously sold their souls to Mr. Obama and the left, the aforementioned senators have a limited opportunity to act to rehabilitate themselves by jumping off the Obama train to nowhere. If these senators are as self-serving as I suspect them to be, that's three votes that Mr. Obama and Majority Leader Reid can't count on. And more names can be added to the list.

If the Democrats' civil war plays out as expected, the result will be legislative torpor, magnificent wheels-squealing, and grinding-to-a-halt gridlock for 2010. Much to the relief of taxpayers and Main Street Americans, the 111^th Congress will do no more damage...because it can't.

Civil wars typically don't have pretty endings. This one won't, either. A bad economy made worse by a "waste no crisis" president and his henchmen and a War on Terror that's devolving into an ACLU parody combined with a fracturing and fighting Democratic Party is the stuff of electoral bloodbaths, perhaps eclipsing the Democrats' 1994 carnage.

But that's for another day. Right now, let's just thank conservatives, tea party patriots, and independents (and some rank-and-file Democrats) for Scott Brown's victory. Bay Staters, along with their brethren earlier in Virginia and New Jersey, have a made a stout first line of defense against Mr. Obama's and the left's encroachment on our liberties.

GOP: Let Harry Reid hang himself

By MANU RAJU | 1/13/10 7:18 AM EST

Politicol.com

Republican senators are backing down from efforts to topple Sen. Harry Reid, having concluded that the Nevada Democrat has done more to hurt himself than they could do with an inevitably futile drive to oust him as Senate majority leader.

In the immediate wake of news that Reid had referred to Barack Obama as a “light-skinned” African-American with no “Negro dialect,” a number of GOP leaders — including Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele — said the majority leader should resign. But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) declined to join the chorus Wednesday. And immediately afterward, several other GOP senators decided not to jump into the fray.

Republicans say Reid has done enough to embarrass himself — and to make his already tough bid for a fifth term even harder.

“He’s going to have to live with his words,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), vice chairwoman of the Republican Conference. “Sen. Reid is going to be judged on a number of issues as he faces this election — what he says and what he does.”

Stuck in a 40-vote minority, Republicans were powerless to dethrone Reid on their own, and not a single Democratic senator has called for Reid’s ouster over his racially charged remarks.

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) was the only one to come close. He said Monday that he hadn’t yet decided whether Reid should keep his job. Surprised by the comments, Reid’s staff immediately made contact with Feingold’s aides, and Feingold passed back word through staff that he wanted Reid to keep his post.

It’s unclear whether Reid will pay a price with his colleagues; in future negotiations over legislation or committee assignments, some senators may feel emboldened to seek concessions by reminding the leader that they stuck with him in one of his darkest moments.

“Sen. Reid continues to have my support in his role as majority leader,” said Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.), who has previously urged Reid to help him regain his seniority on committees. “I know him to be a good man, a strong supporter of President Obama and his agenda, and a tireless advocate on civil rights.”

An aide to Specter — who has in the past stood by other embattled senators — said the senator’s potential committee assignments and seniority in the next Congress have nothing to do with his position on Reid’s standing.

“His apology was heartfelt, and as a person of deep faith he will be harder on himself than anyone else could be, which is why it is especially disappointing to see people trying to politicize this situation,” added Sen. John Rockefeller (D-W.Va.).

With Reid’s position secure in the caucus, calling on him to resign — at this point — made little sense to McConnell, who is the lone Republican who must work with Reid on a daily basis. While they’re not close personal friends — they rarely chit-chat, preferring to get down to business quickly — McConnell and Reid have a cordial working relationship.

If McConnell had joined the fracas over Reid, he’d have soured his relations with the majority leader — and could have set a precedent if he ever found the roles reversed.

Asked repeatedly about Reid throughout a 45-minute news conference Tuesday, McConnell refused to criticize the majority leader, to weigh in on his remarks or to call on him to step down.

“Who’s going to be the Democratic leader of the Senate is up to the Democratic conference,” McConnell said.

Other GOP senators have also decided against joining calls by Steele, and Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) for Reid to step aside — including Sens. Mike Crapo of Idaho, Roger Wicker of Mississippi, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and John Ensign, Reid’s fellow Nevadan who has long maintained a nonaggression pact with the majority leader.

On Wednesday, Reid is expected to return to Washington for the first time since his comments were reported in “Game Change,” a new book by journalists John Heilemann and Mark Halperin. Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) are expected to meet at the White House with Obama in what would be his first face-to-face encounter with the president since the disclosure. Reid has apologized to Obama, who has in turn fiercely defended Reid and his record on civil rights.

To an extent, the GOP playbook resembles what Democrats did after the 2002 remarks of then-Sen. Trent Lott when he seemed to praise Sen. Strom Thurmond’s 1948 presidential candidacy and his support for racial segregation.

At the time, then-Sen. Tom Daschle, the Democratic leader, largely stayed away from criticizing Lott — even as some in his leadership team and many rank-and-file Democrats called for Lott to abandon his bid for majority leader in the ensuing Congress. That, coupled with GOP criticism and silence from the Bush White House, led Lott to relent under the barrage of criticism.

In the Reid situation, too, GOP criticism has been sharp — and, some Republicans say, necessary, in order to keep Democrats from sweeping it under the rug.

“If the Republicans held back, then the Democrats would have already starved this story of oxygen and extinguished the flames,” said Ron Bonjean, a GOP strategist who was a top Lott aide at the time of the 2002 controversy. “They have remained engaged in order to give this story the proper attention that it deserves.”

A senior GOP aide said that even if Republicans stop banging the drum over Reid, the damage has been done: The Democrats appear to be flip-flopping after calling on Lott to resign in the wake of a similar controversy; they’ve shown that they will do “anything and everything to retain power in Washington”; and Reid has underlined the fact that he is now the most vulnerable Democratic senator seeking reelection.

Indeed, Stuart Rothenberg, the nonpartisan political analyst, on Tuesday moved Reid’s race from the “toss-up” column to “leans takeover” — making Reid the only incumbent standing for reelection in that category.