NYT token “conservative” dupe David Brooks, that is:

Barack Obama campaigned offering a new era of sane government. And I believe he would do it if he had the chance. But he has been so sucked into the system that now he stands by while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi talks about passing health care via “deem and pass” — a tricky legislative device in which things get passed without members having the honor or the guts to stand up and vote for it.

Deem and pass? Are you kidding me? Is this what the Revolutionary War was fought for? Is this what the boys on Normandy beach were trying to defend? Is this where we thought we would end up when Obama was speaking so beautifully in Iowa or promising to put away childish things?

Yes, I know Republicans have used the deem and pass technique. It was terrible then. But those were smallish items. This is the largest piece of legislation in a generation and Pelosi wants to pass it without a vote. It’s unbelievable that people even talk about this with a straight face. Do they really think the American people are going to stand for this? Do they think it will really fool anybody if a Democratic House member goes back to his district and says, “I didn’t vote for the bill. I just voted for the amendments.” Do they think all of America is insane?

No, not really. They think all of America is stupid, and weak, and has been softened up over decades of creeping, incremental expansion of already unconstitutional government for a good, hard fucking, the hardest and most comprehensive yet. They think we’re finally ready to accept the bit once and for all.

I don’t think it is mere partisanship that makes me believe that representatives should have the guts to actually vote for the legislation they want to become law.

Either this whole city has gone insane or I have or both. But I’m out here on the ledge and I’m not coming in the window. In my view this is no longer about health care. It’s just Democrats wanting to pass a bill, any bill, and shredding anything they have to in order to get it done. It’s about taking every sin the Republicans committed when they were busy being corrupted by power and matching it with interest.

Welcome to the party, pal. Jen Rubin has some fun at this pointy-headed elitist’s expense, although she too gets some stardust in her eyes at the end:

So I think we can agree that this is not moderate, not thoughtful, and not Burkean. (And it turns out that a perfectly creased pants leg was not a sign that “he’ll be a very good president.”) What we have learned is that Obama is willing to use radical means to defy the popular will and enact a massive expansion of government. Maybe the rubes understand Obama fairly well, after all. They figured out quite some time ago that the entire campaign message — change, hope, post-partisanship, nonideological, fiscally sober — was a ruse. And they understand how immoderate both his methods and his aims are.

I personally am not out on a ledge. (But then I never bought the whole Obama campaign whoop-de-do.) Should this pass, I have infinite faith that the American people will deliver a mortal electoral blow to those politicians who thought they could shred anything to get their way. And then bit by bit — or in one fell swoop — the elected replacements for the shredders will rip out ObamaCare. So there’s no reason to be morose. Elections are great corrective exercises, and one is just around the corner.

Suuuure they will. And Obama will promptly veto it; there is no scenario under which the Repubs gain a veto-proof majority in 2010. Also, there is absolutely no reason to assume that the gutless wonders of the Stupid Party, having never shown the slightest penchant for doing so yet, are going to stand up against a liberal-media onslaught the likes of which has never been seen to do away with CommieCare. Once it’s in, we’re stuck with it, just as with every other Leviathan State program ever passed.

You wishful-thinkers just keep telling yourselves “they don’t have the votes.” The rest of you, back to sharpening pitchforks, boiling tar, and loading mags.