This is absolutely horrible news:

WASHINGTON -- Invoking the name of Edward M. Kennedy, Democrats united Saturday night to push historic health care legislation past a key Senate hurdle over the opposition of Republicans eager to inflict a punishing defeat on President Barack Obama. There was not a vote to spare.

The 60-39 vote cleared the way for a bruising, full-scale debate beginning after Thanksgiving on the legislation, which is designed to extend coverage to roughly 31 million who lack it, crack down on insurance company practices that deny or dilute benefits and curtail the growth of spending on medical care nationally.

"The Congressional Research Service recently found that 97.6% of all bills that have cloture invoked on a motion to proceed are eventually given final approval by the chamber."

Well, guess what? I'm not especially enjoying writing a blog post right now. I hate it, in fact. I do have a personal life. But the main reason I am writing it is because I have this creepy feeling that the sneaky bastards who want to run our personal lives hoped that my personal life would prevent me from even noticing, much less having time to speak up.

Sorry, but I saw this one coming. And now I'm worried about what's next.

There are still some Democrats who have problems with the bill -- especially conservative Democrats who oppose abortion. What I sincerely hope does not happen would be for the Republicans to repeat what they did in the House -- which was to add an anti-abortion amendment assuaging the Democrats' concerns and facilitating the passage of the bill.

But things aren't looking good. From a report, earlier today before the ominous cloture vote:

But the big issue will come if the vote is to take up the bill. Then the issue will shift to abortion. Amendments will be offered to strengthen the prohibition of using either tax dollars or premiums revenue for abortions while others will seek to expand and guarantee "the woman's right to choose" or what is euphemistically called "reproductive health care" or for abortion. Whichever way the abortion issue shakes out will then either crystallize some votes for and other against and the final outcome will most likely be determined by how those votes shake out.

I'll repeat:

THIS IS NOT ABOUT ABORTION.

It is a bill which would (I like the way this guy put it),

...raise our taxes, destroy Capitalism, give the government more control of our lives, is in complete violation of the Constitution, will raise costs, and add trillions to the deficit. It will force us onto government run health care, will guarantee people something they have no right to, will instate death panels, will force jail time if you want freedom, and is the end of America as we know it.

I never would have imagined that just as the Democrats were poised to ruin the health care system and destroy a huge chunk of the free market, the debate would be over abortion.

As far as I can tell at this point the bill couldn't have passed the House with abortion funding in it and it may be that it can't pass the Senate without abortion funding in it. Abortion!

You know it may just be that one million abortions a year saves us from this health care monstrosity. Cold. That. Yep. Or maybe the Republicans will figure a way to screw the pooch. It has happened before.

Perhaps some of them think that the bill ought to pass for strategic reasons, so that they have an issue to help them defeat the Democrats. And if they can use abortion as an enabling tool, so much the better. That way, they can say that it could have been worse. They just can't see that by making it "better," they're helping it pass.

The whole thing is pretty sickening to contemplate on a Saturday night.

Once again, we are not represented. We are ruled.

And it wasn't supposed to be this way. But it is.

UPDATE: My thanks to Sean Kinsell for the link, and for reminding me that I didn't have to feel sorry for myself over blogging on a Saturday night.

I mean, really. While it's bad news, attacking the health care bill was like shooting fish in a barrel compared to writing a fair and honest review of Sarah Palin's new book without succumbing to political pressures.

Sean begins with Andrew Sullivan:

"whose mission in life is apparently to give continued currency the old charge that homosexual men are freaked out by fecund, motherly women."

Read it all.

I should buy the book -- if for no other reason than bookstores in the Bay Area refuse to sell it.

As David Harsanyi put it, "All you haters out there force me to root for her."