Obama is aware of the political reality that not much will pass Congress after the April recess. It’s a sad commentary that Congress doesn’t pass big bills close to elections. It’s almost an admission that they know people don’t really approve of their job performance. Surely, many of these Democrats are well aware that they don’t have to forfeit their jobs. Indeed they are aware, but the Democrat leadership has hoodwinked many of them into believing voters would be angry with them for not enacting Obamacare.

Of course, the Dems would like Representatives not to think about whether voters are angry with or without this particular bill. This is about saving face. It’s about proving that Democrats are not total failures (just partial ones). It’s also about extending the lie of Obamacare for 6 more years until it kicks in, all the while letting Uncle Sam collect those extra taxes. The bad news is that while the “benefits” of the bill won’t kick in until several years from now, the business killing taxes and rules kick in right away.

That means conservatives have one last hope: The House might not pass the Senate bill. Why would they? It’s fundamentally different from the Senate bill, anyway (from a Democrats perspective). Plus, there are really no guarantees the Senate will want to (or be able to) pass aspects of the House bill via reconciliation.

So it comes down to this: Are Congressional Democrats principled on the bill they actually want to pass or are they partisan shills? The cynics (like myself) believe the latter but only time will tell. Something about the House just passing the Senate bill just feels wrong, though. It’s clearly against the House’s wishes. They have their own bill, but due to Scott Brown they are now going to buckle under party pressure.

The President knows this is likely to costs the Dems many seats in November, but he doesn’t care. Obamacare is about Obama. He needs his monument and he wants it by Easter, no matter the cost.

It’s difficult for anyone to know exactly what Congress is planning to do “for” us. At first blush, it seems like a scheme designed to make Obama play good cop while Congressional Democrats play bad cop. More likely, it’s a slight of hand trick wherein the confidence man (Obama) keeps us focused on him, while his shills in Congress deliver a very nasty belated Christmas present.

The latest scheme goes something like this: House Democrats vote for the senate bill as is, then the Senate can use “reconciliation” (the nuclear bomb option) to hijack the bill with all kinds of extra junk the House wanted (like the “public option”) but which would not get 60 votes in the Senate. This “reconciliation” would only require 51 votes. Also, because reconciliation is designed for budget bills only, the Senate will end up attaching health care to the back of a new budget bill. If it sounds complex and ethically questionable, that’s because it is. What else would you expect from the Pelosi/Reid Congress?

This is yet another reason why the GOP should boycott the Feb 25th meeting with Obama. He has no plans to listen to the GOP. This is a distraction designed to keep Americans focused on Obama’s talks with the GOP while Congress pushes through the most unpopular piece of legislation since TARP. Instead, the GOP ought to spend the time on television revealing the sordid details of what Congress is doing while the President is running his legislative shell game. When it comes to November, nothing could help the GOP more than demonstrating in real-time what the opposition is up to.

Who knows, maybe the GOP will get to use the nuclear option to remove this god-forsaken piece of legislation from the books after November. We can hope.