The great irony in this whole...

...health care saga is that the Democrats ended up passing a Republican plan. Yes, that's right, a Republican plan. The bill that President Obama signed into law today is remarkably similar to the one Mitt Romney enacted when he was the Republican governor of Massachusetts. It's also similar to the Republican response to Hillarycare back in 1993. (It's even more moderate than the one President Nixon, another Republican, proposed in 1971.)

How can that be? It's as if, after failing to pass Hillarycare in 1993, the Democrats said, "Okay, fine. Have it your way. Let's pass your plan, then."

"Go ahead and try!"

And after 17 years, the Democrats made good on their promise. And the Republicans let them do it. From 1994 through 2006, the GOP controlled the Congress (and the White House for six of those years). Instead of claiming an historic legislative victory for themselves, the Republicans let the Democrats have it instead. The Republicans let the Democrats, in effect, reach into their holster, take their gun and shoot them with it. It reminds me a little of that old Sprint commercial where one cowboy keeps slapping the other one in the face. Except in this case, the Democrats slapped the Republicans in the face with their own hands!

Now, after painting themselves into an ideological corner, all the GOP is left with in 2010 is the plan put forward by Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. It can only be thought of, charitably, as the Banana Republic Plan--health care for the rich only.

I don't see how the Republicans come back from this.