In Which Zandar Answers Your Burning Questions

Byron York's op-ed this morning in the Moonie Times is a fabulous example of GOP mendacity, as he coyly asks:

Why was it so hard for Dems even to start health care debate?

The extraordinary thing about the dramatic events surrounding the health care bill in the Senate is that there was any drama at all. Lawmakers were simply voting to begin debate on the Democratic version of health care reform. Just begin debate -- not end it, and not move on to a final vote.

If Democrats, with a 60-vote majority in the Senate, had not been able to begin debate on the top Democratic policy priority in a generation -- well, that would have been a devastating turn of events, both for the party and for President Obama. And yet just starting debate proved difficult, and only on the last day did the 60th Democratic vote fall in place in favor of beginning the process.

I asked a high-ranking Republican Senate source whether it was really that hard to get the Democratic votes together. Could it have been a media-fed story, with reporters looking to inject some unwarranted drama into the proceedings? No, I was told. "It really was that hard for them to get to 60 just to proceed," the source said. "Very telling."

Byron, not that I'd tell you how to do your job (which apparently is being a smarmy Village tool) but let's be honest: right now we have a Senate that consists of 59 actual Senators, Joe F'ckin Lieberman, and 40 worthless appendages who don't want debate on anything. The Republican caucus has abdicated its responsibility to the American people and has decided it will filibuster every piece of legislation at every point in order to block the Democrats. It is that hard for the Democrats to get 60 votes to start debate because 40 percent of the Senate does not want to ever start debate on anything other than their own agenda, and hasn't now for three years.

When there are automatically 40 no votes out of 100, everything will be this hard to pass. Period. That's the point.

Byron's a knucklehead, but this is stupid even for him. America wants a real opposition party, not the international laughingstock the GOP is now.