Dick Armey predicts (via Memeorandum) that the current round of Democratic shenanigans will succeed at forcing Obamacare through.

"They'll probably force this through," he said. "But you can't discount the number of people who can be moved by a ruthless and powerful political leader or group of political leaders."

The FreedomWorks chairman also had harsh word for the rest of Congress - the "self-serving" people he suggests are equally to blame for the passage of health care legislation.

"The average member Congress - House and Senate - is first and foremost only a self-serving inconvenience-minimizer who doesn't have a lot of principle they stand on the first place," he said. "It doesn't take much to move a jellied spine, so they'll probably get their votes."

On the plus side, Armey thinks it will result in a Republican triumph in November, with the Tea Party movement playing a prominent role:

Asked if Democrats will get a bounce in poll numbers if they pass health care reform, Armey said Democrats "will get politically bounced" from office. Armey is confident that Harry Reid will lose his Senate seat in November and that Republicans will regain a majority in both houses of Congress either this election cycle or the next.

Armey attributed the rise of conservatism and the Republican Party to a "wave of grassroots activism" led by the Tea Party movement. He called the Tea Party the swing vote in the upcoming election, but he also made clear that the Tea Party is not a third political party.

"Right now they have a clear understanding of who they're swinging against," Armey said. "They're swinging against the Democrats because the Democrats are scaring them half to death."

Armey warned Republicans that the Tea Party activists won't go away if the Republicans regain the majority. They will keeping watching and will be just as quick to turn on Republicans if they start putting their own interests above America's interests.

"The Republican Party has got to find a way to convince [the Tea Party] that they're reliable adults - a rare thing indeed to be found holding public office," Armey said.

I don't know what is going to happen, and much as I hope Armey is wrong, what hurts the most right now is seeing Big Pharma in bed with the big government monster:

The drug industry, which has held off running ads until officials sign off on the final reconciliation bill, is growing more comfortable with the emerging legislation and is preparing a substantial pro-reform ad buy in 43 Democratic districts, according to a senior industry source. The amount and timing of the buy have not yet been set and hinge largely on action in the House. Still, the development is a substantial step forward from Monday morning, when industry officials, coming off a tough weekend of negotiating with Democratic staffers, said there were no ads in the works. The movement should also help appease the White House, which has been leaning on the industry to provide Democrats air cover, according to industry sources.

I would love to see all these predictions prove wrong and I hate to sound so glum, so I thought I would offer some spiritually uplifting music which is a remix of a lovely Soviet Era tune that's currently the rage on YouTube (the song couldn't be sung at the time, so they ditched the lyrics).

Nothing like something to comfort us in our time of need.

And the lyrics really make about as much sense as this:

"The preferred solution for Democrats would be for Obama to hold off signing anything until the sidecar health bill has cleared Congress -- something neither CBO nor the parliamentarian's office rules out. ... CBO has said nothing officially but it's clearly signaled that the most practical approach would be for the reconciliation bill to be written to directly reference the larger Senate bill. ... But for the parliamentarian, this is the hardest route to defend if Democrats truly want to avoid having an early bill signing. Frumin has privately argued that if reconciliation is to change law, what it changes must truly be law -- not simply a bill on its way to the president. He's pointed to alternative routes such as amending the underlying Social Security or Medicare statutes on which much of the Senate bill rests. But if the bill is written to specifically build on the Senate bill -- thereby helping with CBO scoring -- then Obama will have to sign it into law before Senate action. A compromise might yet be found, but after weeks of trying different drafting approaches, the House appears resigned to moving ahead with an approach that directly references the Senate-passed bill."

MORE: If you weren't disgusted enough, read "Sleazy backroom deals on Obamacare."

It's hard to believe we live in a country founded on the idea of government by the consent of the governed.

UPDATE: Via Glenn Reynolds, I see that Dan Riehl did not like Armey's prediction:

What Armey did stinks. And it stinks like inside the beltway political crap. I've no idea what an organization's agenda really is when it's running ads and promotions for a protest, collecting contact information for it, then going on record predicting defeat before said event has even taken place. It was pretty gotdamned insulting, especially considering so many people are out here everyday putting so much into this stuff - and without the presumably six figure pay-out Armey enjoys for apparently talking the talk but not walking the walk.

Freedom Works has a problem. I'm not going to go on about it. But they had better fix it, whatever it is. As things stand, I'm not real interested in pushing their crap going forward. What Armey did sucked, big time. It was a slap in the face of every genuine activist out here and it came at a critical time.

I'm 55 years old, and one of the things I have seen many, many times is that political wars are won by attrition. There are many ways to wear people down and eventually wear them out. Make them stay up all night -- better yet on a Saturday night -- physically and mentally wear them out by forcing them to listen, schedule and reschedule endless committee meetings that last until two in the morning, and talk, talk, talk , debate, debate, debate, and above all harangue, harangue, harangue. In the normal course of events, this will ensure that the only people left standing are political ideologues. Ordinary people will have given up. I haven't given up, but that's only because I know their fucking game, and I can refuse to play it and therefore reuse to lose it.

What is different now is that ordinary people know what's going on. They know that the endless waits at the doctors office which would be a reality if this nightmare "passes" will make the delays now look like a walk in the park.

So I think they'll wear out the ideologues before they wear out the ordinary people.

Dick Armey is an ideologue (a guy the left accuses of being Mr. Tea Party Astroturf personified), and I think he is so used to playing that game that he might have thought that putting the fear of God into people would motivate them. But screw Armey. He is not in charge of the Tea Parties and I seriously doubt he will wear anyone out, (least of all a leaderless, spontaneous, self-starting juggernaut). He certainly didn't wear me out; as I said, he caused me to crank out another post about this despite the fact that I hate -- and I mean absolutely detest -- repeating myself.

I think that even if Armey somehow did cause the activists to stay home, the real people would still be pissed enough that they would not let up. And if the real people were to actually descend on Washington, that would scare the crap out of, out of them.

(Forgive me for repeating myself etc.)