Sheldon Whitehouse, Senator from Rhode Island, makes this point:

When it turns out there are no death panels, when there is no bureaucrat between you and your doctor, when the ways your health care changes seem like a good deal to you, and a pretty smart idea, when the American public sees the discrepancy between what really is, and what they were told by the Republicans, there will be a reckoning. There will come a day of judgment about who was telling the truth.

I'd like this to be true, but isn't the whole problem right now that objective reality just keeps receding from view? Won't Fox News just run scary stories about grannies dying because of the health care bill (which doesn't take effect until 2014, but never mind that)? Is there any reason to believe that the Republicans won't just double-down on obstruction, while hoping and praying that the economy continues to recover slowly so they can win back some seats in 2010?

Speaking of which, thanks to the Club for Growth for getting a burr so far up Arlen Specter's ass that he switched to the Democrats. Do you really think he'd have voted for this bill if there was an (R) next to his name?