If the Senate Democrats hand Fearless Leader a medicare bill on any terms but theirs, Daschle, Reid and several others need to be spending more time looking for new jobs than they are now. By handing the republicans this bill, they might just as well set up a pillory and invite every republican to take a cut at thier collecitive asses. It's a major propaganda piece for sure and it'll be hammered home more than the "Al Gore Invented the Internet" theme...with the advantage of being true from their spin perspective.

With the Senate moving toward final congressional approval of his Medicare prescription drug bill yesterday, President Bush has made a bid to break the historic political alliance between Democrats and senior citizens -- a feat that could change the dynamics of next year's election and perhaps long-term partisan patterns in this country.
...
Indeed, the White House was poised last night to claim credit for the measure, which would begin subsidizing seniors' drug bills in 2006 and at the same time move Medicare from a purely governmental program to one with a major role for private insurers. Despite the GOP's victory dance, a variety of political analysts said the effects in 2004 and later years are more difficult to predict. Robert J. Blendon, a health care pollster at Harvard School of Public Health, said Bush "will get credit because chief executives always get credit for getting something done, even if that something is viewed as inadequate." But he added that "I'm absolutely convinced the design of this thing will be a major issue in the 2006 election," the first year seniors will be confronted with a choice about their drug coverage.

Yeah, rolling over works all the time. Cowards.