How much damage will the lame-duck Democratic Congress do?

This “fierce urgency of now” comes from the obvious political consideration that a lame duck Congress has nothing to lose. Once it’s been thrown under the bus and lies there bleeding (actually, you might say it threw itself in front of the bus, but let’s not quibble about the finer points), it might just as well enact a piece of legislation that will further bankrupt the country and please the left fringe and nobody else. Beware a group that’s still in power but has stopped fearing any consequences from the public…

At least with HCR, the representatives in the House and a third of the Senate knew they would have to face the voters in 2010. If Republicans win control during that election, and then the present Democratic Congress takes up and passes the hugely unpopular cap and trade between November’s election and January’s swearing in, nearly all pretense of accountability will be gone, and whatever might still remain of Obama’s affable “let us reason together” disguise will have been vaporized as he is fully revealed for the arrogant and cold-blooded power-hungry operator he always has been.