And words are made to bend.

Back in 2005, the Republican majority in the Senate was frustrated that the Democrats were filibustering judicial nominees. Democrats, recognizing the long-ranging impact of conservative judges seeded throughout the system, were using one of the few options they had to stop Bush II from enrobing right-wing reactionaries. To stop this, the Republicans threatened to change the rules of the filibuster so it couldn't be used to block judicial nominees; the Republicans themselves called this the "nuclear option."

Now in 2010, the Democratic majority in the Senate finds all their efforts to reform health insurance and to foster more equitable health care in this country blocked by threat of Republican filibuster. So they are preparing to use the budget reconciliation process to combine two current bills — one each passed by the House and Senate — into a single bill on which the entire Legislative branch can vote. They are using the tool of reconciliation that has been used numerous times to enact such monumental healthcare legislation as COBRA (provides continuation of coverage between jobs) and CHIP (insures underprivileged children).

However the Republicans are frightened by the use of reconciliation because it only requires a simple majority vote to pass, just like the same simple majority vote that's used to elect representatives, to remain on the island, even to pick the dinner entrée in many American households. Specifically, the Republicans can't use the filibuster to stop reconciliation, and because they don't have a majority (in either the House or Senate) they can't thwart the planned health insurance reforms.

But because Tyranny of the Minority and "We Want Our Way" don't play well in America, the Republicans have decided to take the scary name of their own threat to rewrite the rules of the Senate and apply it instead to the established and respected tool that's used to move legislation forward: reconciliation. They have started calling reconciliation "the nuclear option" in an effort to mislead the media and scare the public, taking the moniker of their feint at rule-changing halfway through the game and applying it instead to the process that's used in every single Congress to enable the Legislature to complete the tasks for which they've been elected.

(I often take the 85 to get home, however if there's too much traffic I take Highway 9 instead. But that doesn't make 9 the "nuclear highway," just a more expedient option.)

Tonight, Rachel Maddow and my fantastic senator, Barbara Boxer, shed light on the Republican lies being told in an attempt to smear the reconciliation option:

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Outright lying to the American people by their elected representatives ought not to be allowed. But if no one's going to enforce the rules about it, at least the media should be exposing it.

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"And words are made to bend."	Lyric from the song Lies by Thompson Twins