Well, fewer Democrats voted for repeal than I had anticipated.    Gotta give the unpopular Minority Leader credit for holding her caucus together.  Still, the Republican leadership did a lot better holding their caucus together for the repeal vote than their Democratic counterparts did with their caucus in the previous Congress:  all 242 Republicans backed repeal:

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said the healthcare law on the books would increase spending, raise taxes and eliminate jobs.

“Repeal means paving the way for better solutions that will lower the costs without destroying jobs or bankrupting our government,” Boehner said in remarks on the floor before the vote.

“Let’s stop payment on this check before it can destroy more jobs or put us into a deeper hole.”

The vote to roll back the president’s signature domestic achievement of the 111th Congress just 10 months after its passage underscores the deep divisions that still surround the new law. But whether House action will signal the beginning of a rapid dismantling of the healthcare overhaul or serve merely as a historical footnote remains to be seen.

Wonder if U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) will get the same treatment Sarah Palin did for using the expression, “blood libel“:

Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) on the “lie” of government takeover of health care: “You say it enough, you repeat the lie, you repeat the lie, and eventually, people believe it. Like blood libel. That’s the same kind of thing, blood libel. That’s the same kind of thing.”

“The Germans said enough about the Jews and people believed it and you have the Holocaust,” Rep. Cohen said.

This is civil discourse?

Via Instapundit.

UPDATE:  Readers, please let me know if you come across any Democrat or left-of-center pundit who criticized Mrs. Palin for using the expression will take Mr. Cohen to task.  Thanks!

The House will vote later today on repealing ObamaCare, one of the most unpopular big-ticket bills ever passed by Congress.  Jennifer Rubin contends, it “will pass overwhelmingly, with more Democratic votes in favor of repeal than there were Republican votes to pass it originally.”

For that to happen, Republicans will need just two Democratic votes (if by original passage, she is referring to the bill then-Rep. Joseph Cao (R-La) supported).  I expect at least a dozen Democrats to vote with a unanimous Republican caucus for repeal.  Other Democrats will follow the lead the president took when serving in the Illinois Senate.

There will be about 25 (perhaps as many as 40) more votes to repeal Obamacare than there were votes to pass it (219) last March (219).  House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi who, when Speaker last year, was masterful as rounding up Democratic votes to get to a bare majority will have trouble wrangling as many votes as there were Republicans in the House at the time (178).  Methinks that, in the end, only about 170 members, all Democrats, will vote against repeal.  (But, as per the above, a good number of Democrats will either vote present or will have trouble making it to Capitol Hill at the time of the vote.) (more…)

Gallup reports that while “one in three Americans are still unfamiliar with [House Speaker John] Boehner, his ratings are now much more positive than negative, a shift from prior to the election, when they were about equally positive and negative“:

Of those familiar with the Republican Speaker, nearly two-thirds hold a favorable view of the Ohioan.  By contrast, only 33% view his predecessor favorably with 54% holding an unfavorable opinion of Minority Leader Pelosi.  (Of those who have an opinion, that is, just 38% think highly of the San Francisco Democrat, 62% unfavorably.)

And his victory last year in Nevada has done little to change the popular opinion nationwide of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.  His numbers are almost exactly the opposite of Boehner’s with a 41% unfavorable rating and 25% favorable.