The Full Monty

For those of you who predicted that the Wednesday night speech to the joint session was basically the big signal that Dems were going to go it alone, my hat is off to you.  In retrospect, it was sort of like the gangster speech in "Some Like It Hot" where Little Bonaparte (Barry) gives a very, very qualified birthday toast to his rival Spats Colombo (the Republicans) as a big cake is wheeled in.  Then out pops a thug with a machine gun who mows Spats and his gang down.

[Glancing at the quotes from the movie, this one is also appropriate: Little Bonaparte: Thank you, fellow opera-lovers. It's been ten years since I elected myself president of dis organization - an' if I say so myself, you made duh right choice. Let's look at duh record: In duh lass fissel year we made a hundred an' twelve million dollars before taxes - only we ain't paying no taxes!]

Well, the death of bipartisanship is so obvious that even Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe have said, "Hasta la vista, baby."  There goes the Snowe-kini cover for what is the ugliest body of statism ever proposed.  Dems are now going full frontal- no Collins pasties, no Snowe g-string, no Specter codpiece- oh, wait. That's right, Specter has given up his perennial postition as the Democrats' Borat thong.  Hat tip to Red State and Moe Lane, who gives us this fabulous Jeanne Shaheen quote:

KING: Well, Senator Shaheen, let me come back to you. Senator Collins says she can’t support even a trigger.

So does the president have to make a decision? If a moderate Republican voice like Senator Collins, who is known to try to deal with Democrats, who voted for the stimulus — if she can’t support a trigger, does the president — has two choices, one, give it up, or two, do this with all Democrats. What should he do?

SHAHEEN: Well, first of all, I think that we’re going to have a bill that has significant bipartisan input, regardless of how the votes come out.