[captaing]

The Senate's Saturday evening vote to proceed with a debate on a vast new health-care entitlement program had the “center” Democrats acting as if they were against the bill just before they voted to pass it. The only real drama was how much publicity and pork the fence-sitting Democrats could get in exchange for a vote that everyone knew was they were going to pass after they received their “bribes.”

At this stage of the legislative process, Democrats are determined to pass this caustic legislation at whatever cost before more voters figure out they are getting screwed. The designated role for the "moderates" is to protest and posture enough to claim to have "improved" the bill before they inevitably go along with sending it to become law.

Louisiana Democrat Mary Landrieu, who boastfully protests to have grave concerns about the bill's cost. Those worries became disappeared when Harry Reid added to page 432 of the 2,074-page that would raise the bill's cost by increasing federal Medicaid subsidies for "certain states recovering from a major disaster." Only her state would qualify under that wording so now she doesn't care about the bills costs. Our country and our Constitution was sold out after a politician's pockets were lined with money going into her State.

"I will correct something. It's not $100 million, it's $300 million, and I'm proud of it and will keep fighting for it," she told reporters. She boasted that her vote wouldn't be bought cheaply as she threw our constitution under the bus and changed her vote. What should worry the people is that there is no outcry from her state, which would imply that it is okay to steal from our treasury as long as you get a cut of the stolen goods.

Note that Senator Landrieu's cost incorporated no substantive change in the $25 billion in Medicaid burdens that this legislation will impose on other states, or any reduction in its huge new tax drain on Louisiana small businesses, or any change in the rationing commission it will establish for Medicare. Mrs. Landrieu was voting to enable all of those provisions to take one more giant step toward enactment.

Then there is Arkansas's Blanche Lincoln, who is up for re-election next year and is doing her best to sound as if she is both for and against the legislation at the same time. "We simply cannot ignore the growth in the federal government since the year 2000. I can assure you that the American people have not ignored it," Mrs. Lincoln declared in her Senate floor speech-moments before she said she would vote to proceed with the biggest expansion of government in living memory.

Voters can expect more such faux theater as the debate continues on the Senate floor. Americans shouldn't be fooled by this drama the so called center democrats are displaying.