Obama and Democrats condemned reconciliation in 2005 when Republicans threatened to use it

First, here’s a 2005 video in which Senate Democrat leader Harry Reid says Republicans should stop complaining about the Democrats’ plan to force ObamaCare into law via the reconciliation process.

Now here’s another video recorded this week in which poor old feeble-minded Harry doesn’t seem to remember what he and his cohorts said way back to 2005. If you haven’t time to watch it nor read the transcript, let us summarize it for you.

“Waaaaaaaaaa! Waaaaaaaaa!”

Looks like the Dems didn’t like the concept of the nuclear option until they and their lackeys in the media gave it the kinder, gentler name of reconciliation.Obama: He hasn’t gotten his way. And that is now prompting, you know, a change in the Senate rules that really, I think, would change the character of the Senate forever. And what I worry about would be that essentially you have two chambers, the House and the Senate, but you have simply majoritarian absolute power on either side. And that’s just not what the Founders intended.

Hillary: So this President has come to the majority here in the Senate and basically said, “Change the rules. Do it the way I want it done.” And I guess there just weren’t very many voices on the other side of the aisle that acted the way previous generations have acted and said, “Mr. President, we’re with you, we support you, but that’s a bridge too far. We can’t go there. You have to restrain yourself, Mr. President.”

Schumer: We are on the precipice of a crisis. A constitutional crisis. The checks and balances which have been at the core of this republic are about to be evaporated by the nuclear option. The checks and balances which say that if you get fifty-one percent of the vote you don’t get your way 100% of the time. It is amazing. It is almost a temper tantrum.

Reid: Mr. President, the right to extend debate is never more important than when one party controls Congress and the White House. In these cases a filibuster serves as a check on power and preserves our limited government.

Feinstein: The nuclear option, if successful, will turn the Senate into a body that could have its rules broken at any time by a majority of senators unhappy with any position taken by the minority. It begins with judicial nominations. Next will be executive appointments. And then legislation.
Biden: This nuclear option is ultimately an example of the arrogance of power. It is a fundamental power grab.

Reid: But, no, we are not going to follow the Senate rules. No, because of the arrogance of power of this Republican administration.

Dodd: I’ve never passed a single bill worth talking about that didn’t have as its lead co-sponsor a Republican. And I don’t know of a single piece of legislation that’s ever been adopted here that didn’t have a Republican and a Democrat as the lead. That’s because we need to sit down and work with each other. The rules of this institution have required that. That’s why we exist. Why have a bi-cameral legislative body. Why have two chambers. What were the framers thinking about two hundred and eighteen years ago? They understood, Mr. President, that there’s a tyranny of the majority.

Feinstein: If the Republican majority insists on the nuclear option, the senate becomes ipso facto, the House of Representatives where the majority rules supreme. And the party in power can dominate and control the agenda with absolute power.

Clinton: You’ve got a majority rule and then you’ve got the Senate over here where people can slow things down, where they can debate, where they have something called the filibuster. You know, it seems like it’s a little less than efficient. Well, that’s right. It is. And deliberately designed to be so.

Biden: I say to my friends on the Republican side, “You may own the field right now, but you won’t own it forever.” And I pray God when the Democrats take back control we don’t make the kind of naked power grab you are doing.

Schumer:They want their way every single time and they will change the rules, break the rules, misread the Constitution, so that they will get their way.

Hillary: The Senate is being asked to turn itself inside out, to ignore the precedent, to ignore the way our system works, the delicate balance we have obtained, that has kept this constitutional system going for the immediate gratification of the present President.

Baucus: This is the way democracy ends, not with a bomb, but with a gavel.