Republicans Threaten To Become Bigger Assholes from Open Left - Front Page

If Democrats provide cheaper and more accessible health care to Americans, Republicans have promised to publicly turn themselves into the biggest partisan assholes of the last forty years.

Seriously. That is the actual political calculation Senate Democrats face on health care reform right now. It is the most obvious win-win political calculation Democrats have been presented with during my entire lifetime.

If Democrats use the budget reconciliation process, which denies Republicans a filibuster option, to invest two-thirds of a trillion dollars into health care, Republicans are "threatening" to do the following:

The GOP might first go after White House nominations. Republicans could require each appointee to get a separate hearing and a separate roll call vote. They could stop attending committee hearings, and decline to provide "unanimous consent" to move forward on even the most benign issues or routine Senate business. Republicans could also demand that the text of bills, which are often hundreds of pages long, be read aloud.

Yeah, that will really be a big electoral winner for Republicans. While Democrats give Americans cheaper and more affordable health care, Republicans give America extreme partisan gridlock. Oh please, please don't do this to us Republicans! How can we Democrats ever survive as a political party if Republicans were to engage in such brilliant political tactics?

Even Republicans know that these tactics won't work. If they did think that these gridlock tactics were a good idea, then they would be using them right now. The last three months have largely been dominated by Democrats passing legislation that Republicans claim they hate. As such, why didn't Republicans use these tactics to stop that legislation? Oh, that's right--because they knew that using these tactics to stop legislation that Americans want would make them look like even bigger assholes than they already are.

This isn't a threat from Republicans. This is handing Democrats a third consecutive landslide election on a silver platter. We would be idiotic not to take the opportunity and run.