I understand this whole idea that the Democrats should act like a parliamentary minority and start laying out their own alternative vision for America. But I don't believe for a second that, if Democrats stop their obstructionist ways and roll over for the GOP, that somehow Republicans will go easy on them in 2006. They won't. Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Kent Conrad (D-ND) and the rest will be blamed for all the nation's ills whether they filibuster twenty bills or filibuster none. Democrats will be painted as the party of big government even when they're plainly not. We live, after all, in an era where simply saying that you disagree with the administration is tantamount to treason, or "demoralizing" our troops, or giving "aid and comfort" to the enemy, or whatever nonsense they come up with. So they may as well do the right thing and try to block the worst excesses of the GOP's agenda. After all, knee-jerk obstructionism on health care didn't hurt the Republicans in 1994.

Update: What Sean Aday says.