The bright side

Liberal Oasis provides the silver lining perspective on the Medicare bill:

Yesterday was a day that Dubya and Karl Rove had dreamed of for a long time, the day that they stole the Medicare issue from the Dems, like Clinton did welfare reform.

But instead of getting ready to take a victory lap, they’re about to take a damage control lap.

Some readers may be frustrated that Dems didn’t successfully filibuster the bill, but this wasn’t anything remotely like a cave-in.

In fact, the job the Dems did to get the truth out about the bill, and to neutralize the AARP endorsement (Sunday notwithstanding), has been excellent.

And it has put Bush in a worse political position.

[...]

And the initial broadcast media coverage, which is usually heavily slanted to the victors, instead gave a fair amount of time to Dems and the underbelly of the bill.

This is an important point that needs to be hammered home repeatedly: just because you might lose a legislative battle does not mean you have to lose the spin war that comes afterward. By standing up against this bill and calling so much of it into question the Democrats have managed to give the establishment media something to report other than "another Bush victory".

If the Democrats play this right, the Republicans will curse the day they ever passed this bill.