See, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things

"The people of Massachusetts have spoken. We welcome Scott Brown to the Senate and will move to seat him as soon as the proper paperwork has been received," said Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

And with that final formality performed in fine lapdog fashion, the 60-seat supermajority evaporated and the progressive express train was derailed and... well, and Senate Democrats breathed a deep sigh of relief at not having to deal with this unfamiliar and uncomfortable thing called "power" any more, not that they ever really had much to begin with, considering the Blue Dogs' first inclination after the 2008 election was to see which one could out-Republican the others and Blanche Lincoln and Olympia Dukakis inexplicably became the most important people in the biggest Democratic-majority Senate the country had seen since before "Democrat" took on its modern connotations of social justice, civil rights, and lip service to the same before promptly rolling over to the whims of a minority party that wisely decided to stop acting like it ever lost power in the first place.

And a former nekkid centerfold with a pickup truck and a taste for tax cuts but not so much for the unprivileged classes slid into Ted Kennedy's seat nuts-first and the Dems wonder how this ever could have happened and we can kiss what was left of healthcare reform goodbye.

Never mind that healthcare "reform" in its current state probably isn't worth passing anyway. The teabaggers will crow that this special election in Massachusetts is a bellwether, the first tolling of the death knell for the administration's agenda. Never mind that said agenda barely rises above the status of business as usual; the important thing is that said business as usual was dressed up in a progressive Obama t-shirt trimmed with hopey lace and topped with change sauce, and that image is what took a resounding smack to the gob yesterday. And just like Jesus said, Harry Reid brushed himself off and smiled and politely held the door open for the guy.

Good job, Martha Coakley! Excellent work, DSCC! On the upside, now that everyone and their dog says this means Obama's a one-termer, does this mean he'll get busy on some of those campaign promises that were just too toxic to touch before being re-elected?