The Republican Party is now controlled by a know-nothing coalition of religious fundamentalists, nativists/racists and anti-tax fanatics. Republican elected officials will never anger their "base" by compromising with Democrats on even the most pragmatic policy issues.

Any attempt by Democrats to negotiate with Republicans is an utter waste of time and political capital, as demonstrated by Grassley's shameless pandering on "death panels." Negotiating with congressional Republicans is in reality an attempt to negotiate with the townhall screamers by proxy.

At this point, Obama and the Democrats' only strategy should be to call these Republican hacks out by name and publicly humiliate them for their cowardice and stupidity.

The corporatists think they can control the atavistic forces they've unleashed to quash the health-care reform debate.

Wrong. The Republican Party has already been consumed -- the know-nothing tail is already wagging that rabid dog.

If things continue as they are, the corporate elites will themselves be feeling the sting of the mobs' pitchforks and torches, motivated by nothing more than some crazy talk-show host's need for a manufactured outrage -- "infotainment" in a post-rational era.

The major reason health care reform is floundering is due to the utter lack of Democratic political leadership in the Senate.

The Republicans act with rigid political discipline and achieve results not only disproportionate to their numbers -- but despite policies counter to objective reality.

Senate Democrats don't even act like they're members of a political party. For the political effectiveness he's achieved with his majority, Harry Reid could be replaced with a potted plant and nobody would notice the difference.

Why don't we progressives just scrape a couple of million dollars together and buy a few?

It's a hell of a lot easier than going through all those elections and stuff.

And much more cost-effective.

The Republican Party has ceased being a political party in the historical sense. Republicans are now adherents of a movement that is a combination of religious cult and criminal enterprise.

The two factions within the Republican Party are symbiotic to one another. The religious cultists are actively working to bring about the destruction of America, thus expediting the "Rapture," while the criminals are snatching up every dollar they can from corruption -- which weakens the structural foundation and hastens the demise of America.

If Democrats try to negotiate with those lunatics and sociopaths, they're crazier than the Republicans.

As others have said, why is it up to Stewart to perform the actual job of journalism in this country?

I suspect billions of dollars in advertising spending from the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries is an overriding factor.

In 21st-Century America, the corporate bottom line trumps the public interest -- which is why our country is heading for the historical dumpster.

When the only real agenda of the Republican Party has been to make the rich richer, candor isn't really an option for selling the party platform to the rubes.

So lies are all they've got to work with:

* Welfare queens.

* Tax cuts increase government revenues.

* Concentrating more wealth to the rich will "trickle down" to the poor.

* Union "thugs" destroy successful companies

* Taxation is theft.

* Taxation punishes success.

* Universal health care equals totalitarianism.

* Health care reform will bring "death panels."

* God, guns & gays, etc.

This list could go on ad nauseum. Lucky for Republicans, there is no shortage of credulous fools eager to vote against their own economic interests -- easily manipulated by GOP spinmeisters using tribal and theological framing techniques.

It's obvious by now that anybody with half a brain and no ethics can make a comfortable living touting for the interests of the wealthy. We see them every day not just in the WSJ and Fox News, but throughout the corporate media.

Advocating for the interests of the poor and middle class isn't nearly as lucrative -- they're invisible in our national media.

Americans must be getting way too much mercury in our diets.

Death panels, tea baggers, guns at townhall meetings, Glenn Beck -- as a culture, we're swirling down the toilet.

Obama has found himself confronted with the fundamental rot in America's democracy: the US Senate.

The disproportionate power of small states in the Senate combined with the relatively high impact of lobbyist money (a million dollars of special interest money virtually eliminates the need for fundraising from the "unwashed masses" in small states) becomes an insurmountable obstacle for real reform -- when reform is in conflict with Big Money interests.

In the Senate, US government policy is literally auctioned off to the highest bidder -- and the poor and middle classes aren't even bidding.

Even Senators sympathetic to the idea of reform know that Big Money interests will spare no expense to replace them in the next election.

Obama and the Democrats seem to have forgotten that power is a means to an end, not an end to itself -- and that ultimately, good policy makes good politics.