Imagine our surprise. The standalone bill that [mc_name name=’Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)’ chamber=’senate’ mcid=’M000355′ ] promised as a sop to the dumb pro-lifers failed, exactly like everyone knew it would, exactly as it was designed to do. There was literally no way McConnell was ever going to get six Democrats to sign on to the bill, or to get it past an Obama veto, without this bill having been attached to something else that the President had to sign.

[mc_name name=’Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)’ chamber=’senate’ mcid=’M000355′ ] wanted to achieve exactly one thing with this bill, which was to give [mc_name name=’Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL)’ chamber=’senate’ mcid=’K000360′ ] and [mc_name name=’Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME)’ chamber=’senate’ mcid=’C001035′ ] cover back home for their pro-choice bona fides.

How incompetent and doomed to failure – both real and political – was this play? McConnell also gave cover to two Democrats – Manchin and Donnelly – to brandish their fake pro-life credibility to their conservative electorates back home. If the vote had been close, they would have voted the party line, of course, but since everyone knew it was not going to be, Manchin and Donnelly got a free boost to their general election chances.

Now mark my words, [mc_name name=’Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)’ chamber=’senate’ mcid=’M000355′ ] is going to try to pretend like this was all he could do. He is going to forget that no money can be spent on Planned Parenthood or anything else unless it passes through the chamber that he allegedly controls. His head is so far retreated into his turtle shell from even the word “shutdown” – even as applied to even one government agency – that he will pretend that it is simply not an option.

If anyone brings it up to him, he will harumph and cough and say that he thinks we all learned our lesson from last time – you know, the last time we had a shutdown and the GOP gained a bunch of seats in the election immediately afterwards.

And he and the party apparatus that enables him will have the gall to come back to you, the voters and donors, and ask you to give them more money, more of your volunteer time, and more of your votes. They will lie and claim that doing so is necessary to achieve the goal that everyone definitely wants, which is defunding Planned Parenthood! Surely, next cycle, if Mitch has 57 Senators to work with, this won’t happen again! And so on and so on.

Like so.

He’s counting on you to forget that he still has options. He’s counting on you to forget that just because a political play requires balls does not mean it’s implausible or even a bad idea. He’s counting on your willingness to be fooled and your dislike of Democrats to get you to fall in line.

It’s your choice whether you keep coming back for this performance or not.