Just when you think that things can't get much stranger in this country, they do. Who could have imagined a scenario where health care was the finest hair from being signed into law by the president, only to be blocked by a republican being elected to Ted Kennedy's senate seat in Massachusetts? The ironies are almost palpable.

But if I was the republicans, I wouldn't be making more of this than it is. It was the coming together of a bunch of different things that may not come together ever again. And if Mitch McConnell thinks that Scott Brown, who has to keep his Massachusetts constituency happy, which is nothing like a Kentucky constituency, is going to walk locked step with him, he has to be delusional. Brown will do what he has to do to stay in office in Massachusetts, and a drift too far to the right will be political suicide for him.

I think one of the lessons from this that Obama should take home is that this is the kind of thing that happens when he pretty much ignores the needs of his base - which, whether he wants to admit it or not, was the progressive wing of the democratic party. He's continually moved to the middle, which hasn't served him well at all. If you doubt that, then you are ignoring the facts of where Obama is politically at the moment. He's staked the early years of his presidency on getting health care reform through, and he now been ground to a halt.

The democrats should take heed also, as a party. Letting conservatives like Baucus and Lieberman shape the health care bill made it little more than a corporate giveaway - not much better than we could expect from the republicans. These guys have gotten untold contributions from these health care special interests, and they gave them the farm, so to speak, when they wrote the bill. There was little in there to actually protect the little guy in the long run. The insurance companies were going to get millions of new customers, with little if any restrictions on raising premiums over time. It scared a lot of people.

There are a helluva lot more lower and middle income people than there are upper income and rich. If the democrats would stick to their roots and actually try to stand up to the big money corporations and get some of their huge money holdings away from them and into the hands of the lower income people, they actually might fire them up enough to come out and vote their pocketbook. But that isn't happening. It just seems that things get harder and harder for most people, and easier and easier for the rich. And, no one is doing anything to change it.

Obama gave the conservatives the troop buildup in Afghanistan. He's giving them Guantonamo. He's given them no public option in health care. He's given them a lot. But he hasn't given a lot to the more left wing of the party. And see what he got in one of the bluest states? A slap at a time that he desperately a kiss. I'm afraid this may continue if Obama keep trying to please everyone. That's a recipe for political disaster.