The WSJ editors weigh in on The 60th Vote Regrets:
A second irony is that Democrats only had those 60 Senate votes because of a series of improbable and corrupt events. Mr. Webb won his race by a hair in 2006 after incumbent George Allen stupidly uttered the word "macaca," and the media portrayed him as racist. Alaska's Ted Stevens lost his seat in 2008 by 3,724 votes after he was convicted eight days before the election in a trial in which the Justice Department withheld crucial evidence. He was later exonerated. And Al Franken, who was trailing on Election Day, managed to steal the Minnesota recount in 2008 by 312 votes from a hapless Norm Coleman.
Add the Louisiana Purchase, the Cornhusker Kickback and the other special deals that President Obama used to buy Senate Democratic votes for ObamaCare, and you have the first major new entitlement in history that passed along strictly partisan lines and is as unpopular today as it was on the day it passed.
Messrs. Webb and Bayh can lament what might have been, but the bitter truth is that the only way voters can undo their damage is by defeating Mr. Obama in November and electing a Republican Senate. Otherwise, both men will have left their country economically weaker and health care less affordable than it was when they decided to run for office. That should be their real regret.
I imagine the "hapless" Norm Coleman has a few regrets of his own about how things played out in 2008.
