For an off-year election the races of 2009 have stirred up a hornet's nest. Of special interest are the gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey and the special election in the 23rd District of New York. I addressed all three in last week’s column.

As usual, the winners, most likely the Republicans in at least two out of the three, will interpret the results in broad national terms. The losers will remind us that all politics is local. Both are correct. The trick for both parties is interpreting their relative significance and applying lessons learned to the races to come in 2010.

More immediately, what message will Tuesday's election results send to senators and representatives in Congress who will vote on healthcare-reform legislation? Republicans hope that victories in Virginia, New Jersey, and New York will send a powerful message to "vulnerable" House Democrats who all must face reelection in 2010. Why else were Democrats in such a hurry to pass reform legislation?

Tuesday's election results may sway some votes in the House, but it would be folly for Republicans and Americans opposed to current healthcare-reform legislation to invest too much hope here. Nancy Pelosi's leverage with House Democrats is considerable. I suspect the current bill before the house will pass. When that happens, the ball will be in the Senate's court where the dreaded "public option" has less support but likely will make to a floor vote.

Odds are that an amendment will remove the public option from the Senate bill. What emerges from the conference committee won't be everything Democrats wanted, but it may still be sweeping, radical reform. Herein is the key to 2010 and 2012. If Democrats force through healthcare-reform legislation that the majority of Americans abhor, they may have signed their own pink slips.

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As I indicated in Monday's column we should expect an all out effort by liberals in entertainment and the media to ridicule voices of opposition to what Democrats in Congress are doing; and they have been. This week House Speaker Nancy Pelosi joined them.

Speaking to San Francisco's KTUV News, Pelosi, referring to angry people at Democrat's town-hall meetings, said "This [tea party] initiative is funded by the high end--we call call it Astroturf, it’s not really a grassroots movement. It’s astroturf by some of the wealthiest people in America to keep the focus on tax cuts for the rich instead of for the great middle class." (link)

Far-left liberals like Speaker Pelosi refuse to recognize that Americans, Republicans, Democrats, and Independents, are genuinely concerned and angry. The Democratic Congress is mortgaging the country's future for programs (the stimulus package) that haven't worked and reforms in energy and healthcare that won't affect climate change or improve American's quality of life. They feel like they're getting the bums rush.

Anti-war protests during the Bush administration and pro-healthcare-reform rallies organized by the Obama administration are described as grassroots expressions. Those the left disagrees with are 'Astroturf.' What's new?

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Things haven’t been going well for President Obama lately. Conservative columnists, talk-show hosts, and bloggers are having a field day chronicling the president's fall from the clouds above Mount Olympus. His poll numbers, if not his ambition, have returned to Earth as he has failed to effectively sell his healthcare plan, insinuated a cop was a racist before he had the facts, and delegated too much responsibility to fragmented Democrats in Congress. With Obama's presidency and the Democratic agenda on the line, members of Congress return home in August to meet with their constituents. They'll encounter groups of voters who aren't happy with what Democrats have been doing. It’s America’s growing discontent that’s the real news story this summer. Expect an all out effort by liberals in the media and entertainment to ridicule the voices of opposition.

According to Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee, Director Leon Panetta, in a classified briefing, told them he had terminated an eight-year-old program not previously briefed to them because former Vice President Cheney directed the CIA not to. They immediately demanded an investigation into the program and Cheney's role, making accusations they could not back up with out revealing classified information.

Former CIA Director Michael Hayden reacted angrily. He said that he personally kept "top members" of Congress well-informed during his tenure. House Republicans charged that all House Democrats were doing was trying to give Speaker Nancy Pelosi political cover for her accusations that the CIA routinely lied to Congress after she denied receiving a CIA briefing on waterboarding.

Also we learned that Attorney General Eric Holder is considering appointing a special prosecutor to investigate the Bush administration's CIA interrogation practices, in contradiction to President Obama's stated desires.

Because we don't know the details of the program Panetta briefed to Congress and we don't know if CIA interrogators broke any laws, it's appropriate for a bi-partisan group of investigators reporting to the House and Senate Intelligence committees to conduct a classified look into these matters. According to Senator Diane Feinstein on Fox News Sunday, they are. If they discover any wrongdoing they can refer it to the Justice Department.

Democrats are taking big risks at the CIA's and the nation's expense if they continue to make this a public political issue and if Holder appoints a special prosecutor. Americans want their CIA to protect them from terrorist attacks, not constantly deterred from doing their job for fear of recrimination. They also expect the CIA to conduct its activities within the law, but they don't want to see it handcuffed and fog-marched in public before it's convicted.

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