And Speaking Of Spineless Dems...

Harry Reid has just put the fork in getting Obamacare done before the August recess.

Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) confirmed today that the Senate would not pass health care reform legislation before the August recess.

That the Senate would miss President Obama's Aug. 7 deadline had been obvious for days, if not weeks, as the Finance Committee methodically crafts the one version of the legislation that is expected to gain bipartisan support. But Reid finally made it official, informing reporters that he had granted a request for more time from GOP negotiators.

"I don't think it's unreasonable," said Reid. "This is a complex, difficult issue."

Sure. It's been 16 years after all since Hillarycare. Another month/year/presidential term/generation isn't "unreasonable."

And I'm sure we'll see the same "Health care reform is hard, we'll need more time" in September and October and through the holidays, and then through 2010 when Harry tells us we can't honestly expect to get this passed in an election year, and in 2011 when Harry tells us "Well we just don't have the votes now..."

And of course we'll keep nodding our heads and be told by the Village that Skip Gates and nancy Pelosi killed Obamacare and we had only listened to Judd Gregg, and we'll go "yeah, you know they're right..."

And later that year Ben Nelson will announce he's running for President on a platform of not reforming anything...

Le sigh.

[UPDATE 5:15 PM] And up in Cleveland today, Obama admits that there's not going to be Obamacare by August, but that it's "OK".

"We just heard today that, well, we may not be able to get the bill out of the Senate by the end of August, or the beginning of August," President Obama said. "That's OK. I just want people to keep on working. Just keep working."

Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming...

...all the way to Carter Country. 60 Senate Dems, 235 House Dems. 60% of Congress is not enough to pass legislation when the minority party only cares about destroying the President six months into his term.

[UPDATE 5:25 PM] As Yggy points out, the GOP1993-1994 playbook is in full effect.

INHOFE: Oh, I think so. I really do. In fact, there’ll be a lot of Democrats. You know, I liken it to the cap and trade thing. Now that’s the one that I’ve been kind of in charge of for ten years, and we know where we are on that now. We know that if, as long as people keep talking the way they are right now, we’re going to defeat it. They only have 34 votes. They need 60 votes. I’d say health care right now is somewhere in the neighborhood of, they have maybe 45 votes. But every day, they lose votes, because people find out what it is, what it’s going to do, and what it’s not going to do. When you tell people that the mortality rate in Canada is 25% higher for breast cancer, 18% higher for prostate cancer, you know, they say why in the world would we emulate a system like that? This is life threatening. And so we have all the issues on our side on this thing, and I think, you know, I just hope the President keeps talking about it, keeps trying to rush it through. We can stall it. And that’s going to be a huge gain for those of us who want to turn this thing over in the 2010 election.

Killing Obamacare will put the GOP in charge of Congress. That's the logic. They figure you're going to be so happy, so grateful to the lies and the misinformation and the talk radio cries of socialism and the slick Villagers making millions a year, telling you that there's no health care crisis, that you'll be so ecstatic that the Republicans have killed health care reform for another generation that you'll sweep them back into office in 2010.

That's what they believe. Think about that.