Everyone knows it isn't a good bill - Peggy Noonan

[GG]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123326587231330357.html

It looks like a win but feels like a loss.

The party-line vote in favor of the stimulus package could have been more, could have produced not only a more promising bill but marked the beginning of something new, not a postpartisan era (there will never be such a thing and never should be; the parties exist to fight through great political questions) but a more bipartisan one forced by crisis and marked by—well, let's call it seriousness.

President Obama could have made big history here. Instead he just got a win. It's a missed opportunity.

It's a win because of the obvious headline: Nine days after inauguration, the new president achieves a major Congressional victory, House passage of an economic stimulus bill by a vote of 244-188. It wasn't even close. This is major.

But do you know anyone, Democrat or Republican, dancing in the street over this? You don't. Because most everyone knows it isn't a good bill, and knows that its failure to receive a single Republican vote, not one, suggests the old battle lines are hardening. Back to the Crips versus the Bloods. Not very inspiring.

[Wrinkle]

It's almost like all the campaign promises, expenses and payoffs getting handled by two big-a$$ payoffs. Repubs got the first half, Dems the second.

There's something larger at work here than public need/good.

They certainly seem to have found/discovered a way to make politics profitable. And, all those enourmous campaign expenses get cleaned up, too.