[Kirobaito]

It was perhaps historic in that the House changed control while the Senate did not... that hadn't happened since the 17th amendment was passed. If the Tea Partiers had their way, there would be no 17th amendment.

I care very little about the house. Those wackos will be voted out in two years. The fact that it wasn't nearly as bad in the Senate says something. I'm mainly mad that we have to deal with unqualified nutjobs like Ron Johnson and Rand Paul for six years.

As far as bipartisanship, if you weren't such a complete tool, you'd know that Republicans were adamantly opposed to anything the previous leadership tried to do regardless of its merits. When Obama first came into office and met with House Republicans to try to figure out what areas he could find compromise in, our highly exalted new leader Boehner told them to stay quiet, that there was nothing they could work on together. Bipartisanship is a two-way street, and Republicans are the ones who were incapable of compromise. Much of the legislation contained plenty of Republican initiatives. Hell, cap-and-trade was a Republican program once upon a time, as a market-based solution to emissions. You people love your markets, don't you? But once Democrats actually wanted to do it, Republicans went into tortoise socialist mode and screamed no at the top of their lungs, lying their asses off at every turn about the truth behind most of this legislation. Voinovich breaking with his party out of exasperation on a deficit-neutral small business lending bill is a pretty damn good example. There was no reason Republicans shouldn't have supported it, except they decided that they weren't going to support anything, regardless of its merits. Voinovich was retiring and wouldn't be subject to McConnell's iron hand, so he did what he knew was right.

Nancy Pelosi is Indira Gandhi compared to John Boehner.

As far as "rejecting agendas," most Americans are completely oblivious to the realities of policy. "Death panels" stuck with a lot of people, despite its horrific inaccuracy, merely because the process of explaining the alternative took too much time. Furthermore, turnout for last night appears to be lower than it was in 2006, at least from preliminary reports last night. Politicians of all stripes use this term "the American people" like it's every noun conceivable. This election just had a significantly higher percentage of old people and "get off my lawn" conservatives than the American people as a whole. This was not "the American people." "The American people" does not magically change this much.

Nothing will get done, anyway. The House can pass whatever the hell it wants. It won't pass the Senate, which due to the Republicans' TRULY historic use of the filibuster, we now know majorities don't mean squat. You have to have sixty votes to pass anything.

EDIT: Oh, and can we talk about the bullcrap that is the "Tea Party?" You had an election, and you proved that you were Republicans. Nothing else. That whole "throw the incumbents out" was all hoopla, as everyone with a brain said so. It amounted to, "Throw the incumbents out...unless they're Republicans." Dan Coats? That's who your Tea Party elects? Rob Portman? Mark Kirk? These are the ultimate in Republican retreads.