Just When You Thought Common Sense Had a Chance.

Just when you thought one might be able to breathe a collective sigh of relief.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The 60 votes aren't there any more.

With the Senate set to begin debate Monday on health care overhaul, the all-hands-on-deck Democratic coalition that allowed the bill to advance is fracturing already. Yet majority Democrats will need 60 votes again to finish.

Some Democratic senators say they'll jump ship from the bill without tighter restrictions on abortion coverage. Others say they'll go unless a government plan to compete with private insurance companies gets tossed overboard. Such concessions would enrage liberals, the heart and soul of the party.

Yep... Just when you can see some light at the end of the tunnel.

Just when you thought that there may be an end to the madness...

In come the RINOs to really muck things up. You see, it seems that instead of killing the bill at the onset, the GOP brainiacs in the Senate, like the proverbial dog showing a thief where the best silverware is, are trying to "improve" the bill so as to leave it less palatable to invoke a filibuster!

Erick Erickson at Red State has the gory details:

Having started from the presupposition that the health care legislation is going to pass, the GOP seems to be signaling it will work to “improve” the legislation just enough to overcome a filibuster.

The legislation has 57 votes already. The GOP does not need to offer amendments to improve the bill — they need to bring it to a vote and kill it. Preening for cameras and favorable press coverage is going to get the bill to 60 votes and a signing ceremony.

What a bunch of numb-nuts. Could the Senate GOP get any more of a tin ear? One commenter on RedState said it best, when he invoked Sam Adams:

“If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”—Samuel Adams

Indeed.

May God have mercy on our nation, for miserably squandering the gift of freedom He so graciously bestowed, giving away our children's birthright with the nonchalance of a Hennepin Avenue streetwalker.

As Ronald Reagan famously stated, freedom is only a generation away from extinction. And it appears that our generation is hellbent on making Ronald Reagan's maxim a reality.