Congressional Republicans are irrelevant at the moment. Their self-paralyzed condition is a good thing for the Republic and the party on many levels. Knowing that, let them take no credit when Obama's legislative wish list implodes in September and October. No, when Obama's agenda goes down in flames this autumn, it will be because of the opposition of moderate and conservative Democrats in Congress.
Too many Democrats from rural and suburban districts are reeling with sticker shock from the earliest (and probably wildly conservative) cost estimates of universal health care and cap and trade. Too many of them do not want to have to run for re-election in 2010 while laboring under the label of "tax-and-spend" liberals. Their constituents expected them to do something about swelling unemployment and foreclosures, not erect long-term monuments in the form of unsustainable programs to Obama.
Just because Obama has arrogantly elected to ignore the "short-term" problems of average Americans to focus on his "long-term" agenda of transforming human history and the life of the Republic, doesn't mean the ordinary Democratic congressman from Indiana is on board. In fact, he or she probably isn't, if only for the sake of their own political health and survival.
