Object Lesson

Couple of observations:

One, even in the Age of Democrats, a Senate bill like the stimulus never gets "filibustered by Republicans" in the Village media. Instead, it "needs 60 votes to pass". It does not. It needs 60 votes to stop Senate Republicans from blocking the bill with a filibuster. But even with Democrats running the show, the Village continues to cover for the GOP at nearly every turn.

Two, Remember if Democrats had taken it upon themselves to seat Al Franken and Judd Gregg's replacement had been a Democrat, we wouldn't of had to see Susan Collins get to strip a whistleblower protection provision from the bill, Olympia Snowe remove executive pay limits from the bill, and Arlen Specter cutting $30 billion in spending from the bill.

As Digby says, Obama's sharing his leadership duties with Republican moderates (and Ben Nelson). Pray we can make some serious inroads in 2010. BooMan's got an early handicap of that race, and once again Ohio and Kentucky are prime targets for the Dems.

Of course, by November 2010 the economic picture is going to be much, much worse. It may be all the Dems can do just to hold on.