The Democrats Take a Dive

The battle over a Medicare prescription drug benefit proves that Republicans are ruthless and determined and that Democrats are divided and hapless. Republicans have changed the rules in Washington, but some Democrats still pretend to be living in the good old days.

And so there was much bitterness among Democrats as the Republicans' Medicare drug bulldozer rolled inexorably forward with critical help from two Democratic senators. A majority of Democrats believe the bill was a bad deal -- it gave President Bush a political victory without demanding enough in return. "It's a combination of political stupidity and substantive gutlessness," said one influential Democratic congressional aide.

What Democrats failed to understand, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) said in an interview yesterday morning, is that Republicans "are on an ideological march. They have no intention of playing fair. They want what they want when they want it." And they get it.

If anyone doubted the rules had changed, House Republican leaders ended all illusions in the early hours of Saturday morning by holding open a 15-minute roll call vote for an unprecedented two hours and 51 minutes. At the end of the normal time for voting, Republican leaders faced defeat on the drug bill by a two-vote margin. Eventually, two Republicans were hammered into switching their votes.
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  thanks to BuzzFlash