Not exactly: the Politico reports that, in wake of forty-two Senators sending a letter indicating that Sir Donald Berwick is simply unacceptable for the job of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) head*, Senate Democrats have made an answer to that by… giving up trying to get Berwick nominated. There’ll be no fight, no confirmation hearing, no standing on what the Democrats consider ‘principle.’ They’ll just let him keep going until later in 2011. I’m not fully checked out on the minutiae of recess appointments, but presumably the President can make another recess appointment for Berwick during the next time that the Senate is in recess for long enough.

But that’s not really the point; the point is that it’s clear that one thing is true in the 112th Congress that was also true in the 111th. To wit: Democrats won’t fight. Oh, sure, when they have the votes they’re the toughest guys in the room, and will be happy to walk all over you: witness that ludicrous strutting over passage of Obamacare back in 2009. But the second that they don’t have a sure thing, Democratic politicians cave (see the defeat of the Obama tax hikes during the lame duck session). They cave – or, as we’re seeing in the states, Democratic politicians run away. Because Democratic politicians are cowards, from top to bottom. And here’s the fun part: we know it. Which is why those forty-two Senators sent the letter. Which is why Senate Democrats caved on the cuts in the current CR. Which is why they’ll break later on the budget. They just don’t know how to be brave and fight for their beliefs**.

Poor things.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

*We Republicans can get so unreasonable about people too vigorously praising elderly-killing British-style national healthcare rationing systems – particularly when they’re especially enamored of the wealth-redistributive aspects of health care systems like Obamacare. Call it a quirk.

**The usual reminder: if you don’t like the way that Republican legislators are acting then turn off your computer, go outside, and do something more practical to do to change the situation than complaining on the Internet (trust me, there are a lot of things more practical to do to change the situation than complaining on the Internet). Also, if you keep scowling all the time then your face will freeze like that, and then where will you be?