... and over the cliff they go

Nearly a year into his presidency, Barack Obama continues to repeat the same, tired mistakes that has sent the Democratic Party into the wilderness time and again over the last 40 years.

Despite a deficit expected to reach $1.5 trillion next year, Obama wasted no time adding another $1.1 trillion to the pile yesterday.

The AP reports that leading Democrats believe that the spending bill will help lift the country out of the recession.

Yes, there's no tonic for an ailing economy quite like spending money that doesn't exist, driving down the value of the dollar, and adding even more interest payments to the government's staggering debt load.

And despite a plurality of Americans opposed to such legislation and the economy still deep in a recession, Democrats and Lindsey Graham appear poised to cut any economic recovery off at the knees with the disastrous cap-and-trade bill.

Sean Trende of the invaluable RCP blog calls the looming health care vote "political suicide," and he's right. Take a look at the polling numbers Trende cites, and then try to argue that most Americans want to pass the president's signature initiative. The health care crusade is like the GOP's immigration binge, circa 2005 -- no matter how much the party leadership intends on pushing extremist positions, the reality is that the vast majority of the country doesn't agree, and the party will be punished for it. This is inevitable.

I'm in disbelief that less than 11 months after George W. Bush left office, the Democratic Party has already fallen behind the party of Joe the Plumber in the generic ballot. This is astounding. The GOP continues to be run by impotent, insular, borderline-incompetent leaders like Mitch McConnell, so losing ground this rapidly is no small feat. The Democrats' freefall has been astounding, but nonetheless fun to watch.

They had better hope either Ben Nelson or Joe Lieberman torpedoes their beloved health care bill, or the beatdown they'll take next November will be even worse.