Frankly, I believe very strongly in sunshine rules, be it on healthcare, energy policy or anything else. If you're going to spend taxpayer money writing policy binding on taxpayers you have an obligation to at least inform them of what you're going to do to them before you do it. But complaining that the Dems won't discuss things in public or engage you and then rejecting their invitation to a public meeting is ridiculous. All that is is trying to nail Obamas foot to the floor while avoiding doing it to the Republicans: You go on the record, and we'll talk off the record. Yeah, screw that.

Mmm, yes, every good thing that happened in the '80s was because of Reagans unsurpassed leadership, and everything was that evil Dem Congress. Surely McCain-Feingold didn't pass because Russ Feingold was actually COMMITTED to campaign finance reform more than to his party (even though he publicly pledged to accept no soft money in his '98 re-election campaign, even to the point of angrily calling the DNC and demanding they cease issue ads they aired without his permission. ) And everyone knows Ted Kennedy was a Democrat above all, who never cared about education policy until George Bush raised the issue. Yes, some of the bigger bills has Dem COSPONSORS. In other words, they didn't just grudgingly agree not to filibuster (in the House and Senate combined ONE Republican has voted for a healthcare bill of any kind) they took the initiative, reached out on issues where they thought they had some common ground with a President they generally opposed, and even WROTE SOME OF THE LEGISLATION! We're right back where we were in 1993 (in a lot of ways):

The Republicans say the Dems healthcare bill is bad, but where's THEIR bill...?

That was crap when Kerry pulled his "I disagree with everything Bush has done but would do all the same things" schtick and it still is.

Which raises another good point: It may look good in Mr. Smith, but one man filibusters just don't happen anymore because of how the rules are written. Even if Reid had an ulterior motive that still doesn't explain why the other Dems refused to vote for cloture (they seemed to feel it was because the nominees would be bad federal judges. ) Likewise Shelbys porklust (which is totally different than thinking the President should've appointed the guy you think better suited) doesn't explain why the rest of his party refuses to vote for cloture on ANYTHING. Ironically, the only thing Congressional Republicans have allowed to be enacted are the Wall Street bailouts they want to blame entirely on Obama.