Reconciliation

Has anyone ever noticed when someone does something stupid and then tries to play it off as if nothing happened? I myself am guilty of just that and I'm sure everyone else is either.
So with that bearing in mind is anyone watching what is going on in the Senate?
Has anyone heard what they are saying? What the Senate Majority Leader and House Speaker are telling us?

But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy. [emphasis added]
-Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House

So while all this is going along we're taken back to a time of NUCLEAR OPTION [add in booming voice] where House and Senate Democrats were making the lovely argument that Republicans could not do what they wanted simply because they were the majority party.
All this along with Senator Robert Byrd (one of the authors of the legislative process known as reconciliation) was on floor proclaiming:

"Using reconciliation to ram through complicated, far-reaching legislation is an abuse of the budget process. The writers of the Budget Act, and I am one, never intended for its reconciliation’s expedited procedures to be used this way. These procedures were narrowly tailored for deficit reduction. They were never intended to be used to pass tax cuts, or to create new Federal regimes. Additionally, reconciliation measures must comply with Section 313 of the Budget Act, known as the Byrd Rule, which means that whatever health legislation is reported from the Finance Committee or legislation from any other Committee that is shoe-horned into reconciliation will sunset after five years. Additionally, numerous other non-budgetary provisions of any such legislation will have to be omitted under reconciliation. This is a very messy way to achieve a goal like health care reform, and one that will make crafting the legislation more difficult…

…It is the one place in all of government where the rights of the numerical minority are protected. As long as the Senate preserves the right to debate and the right to amend we hold true to our role as the Framers envisioned. We were to be the cooling off place where proposals could be examined carefully and debated extensively, so that flaws might be discovered and changes might be made. Remember, Democrats will not always control this chamber, the House of Representatives or the White House. The worm will turn. Some day the other party will again be in the majority, and we will want minority rights to be shielded from the bear trap of the reconciliation process…

…While I support the admirable budget priorities outlined in this resolution, I cannot and will not condone legislation that puts political expediency ahead of the time-honored purpose of this institution."

I admire Senator Byrd's bravery for standing up in the face of his political allies, he seems (in this matter) to be one of the few sane voices in the Democratic Party.

And we are told that this is good for us, we need it and that it will not break the bank any further. Numerous criticisms and demonstrations against this bill, Senate and House popularity plummeting into single digits, 3 major elections lost to the Republican, and a president with no previous executive experience making over 4000 speeches to convince people "his" health-care plan (do date he has not made public any plan he has authored) is what the United States needs.
And this is "what the people want".

In the words of the GREAT Keith Olberman,
"Have you no shame, sir?"