My God.....have they finally learned?

I'm about to blow your mind here, so sit down. On the first time in decades on an issue of any importance, it seems that Democrats are finally tired of playing the eager Charlie Brown to the GOP's football holding Lucy, and are willing to go it alone on an issue. As squadrons of pigs take to the skies, Democrats may have decided they're moving towards using their own numbers and ideas to pass a health care bill. To go it alone.

Given hardening Republican opposition to Congressional health care proposals, Democrats now say they see little chance of the minority’s cooperation in approving any overhaul, and are increasingly focused on drawing support for a final plan from within their own ranks.

Top Democrats said Tuesday that their go-it-alone view was being shaped by what they saw as Republicans’ purposely strident tone against health care legislation during this month’s Congressional recess, as well as remarks by leading Republicans that current proposals were flawed beyond repair.

Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, said the heated opposition was evidence that Republicans had made a political calculation to draw a line against any health care changes, the latest in a string of major administration proposals that Republicans have opposed.

Really Rahm? You're just coming to that conclusion now? I think anyone who reasonably pays attention to politics could have told you Republicans were going to oppose any and everything you came up with. But then again, we don't get paid hundreds of thousands of millions of dollars for our supposed political acumen.

But before we get too excited, let's just observe that all this does is set us up for a new kind of disappointment. Instead of the GOP killing a bill or making it worse, now we all get to contend with Ben Nelson, Evan Bayh, Kent Conrad, and House Blue Dogs making the bill worse or eventually killing it if they don't get to make it worse. SO instead of shrugging our shoulders and saying "well at least they tried, but the GOP killed it", we just get to rage at the Democratic party as a whole once again as we wonder why Rahm Emanuel didn't bayonet Blanche Lincoln to show Arlen Specter the White House means business on health care. Have we just traded one bad outcome for another bad outcome? Say, a flupocalypse for a nuclear apocalypse? Possibly. But at least Democrats are going to make the attempt. Maybe. They might recant all this tomorrow.

EDIT: Like clockwork...