Last week, every Republican in the House of Representatives voted against the stimulus bill. Twice. Almost the same story played out in the Senate, as only three Republicans voted for passage.

This nearly-united GOP front didn't matter, though, as the bill will be signed by the Prez tomorrow.

In a larger sense, if there can be anything larger than $787 billion in spending, the Republicans simply continued down the same path that has brought them disaster in the last two elections. They fiddled.

There are, of course, plenty of items in the stimulus bill that shouldn't be there. That's how laws get passed quickly. Barack Obama might have reinvigorated Democratic politics with his lofty ambitions, but he needed boots on the ground (or at the very least, votes on the floor) to get this bill through Congress. He compromised--a little--and got the job done.

But why this recalcitrance on the part of Republicans? Large majorities of Americans in both parties believe that we need to work across party lines to get things done. The folks running the Republican caucus seem to think that bipartisanship means a Democratically-controlled Congress should pass Republican-authored bills. That's not bipartisanship; that's ignoring the results of the last two elections.

And they were disasters for the GOP. The Democrats took charge of both houses of Congress in 2006, and in 2008 a first-term senator knocked off one of the most-respected Republicans in the nation and became president. Oh, and the Democrats further solidified their control of Congress. They now hold 253 seats in the House and 56 seats in the Senate--and that number doesn't count the likely eventual seating of Al Franken or the two independents who generally vote with the Democrats (Bernie Sanders a bit more reliably than Joe Lieberman, of course).

Just for comparison, the high water mark of Republican congressional power during the past 50 years is 231 seats in the House and 55 seats in the Senate. And that was just three years ago, right before the 2006 elections.

Republicans will say that such a dramatic turnaround could swing their way again. It's possible, of course. It's also possible that the Prez will be caught on video in bed with Michael Jackson and a couple of the llamas from Neverland. Possible, but not bloody likely.

Despite the tax problems of a few appointees and other minor distractions, the new administration seems remarkably competent. More importantly, the Prez has been forthright about his missteps. In fact, he's been rather candid in admitting that he'll probably make more mistakes. In terms of the stimulus package, he has said on many occasions that we'll probably have to do more. Some parts will work, some won't, and in a year (or less) we'll probably have to shift course.

This is an adult speaking. There are no magic bullets, especially when you're taking about spending three-quarters of a trillion dollars. But this is also a confident adult speaking. Confident people admit their mistakes and then try to learn from them.

My father-in-law used to work for a large clothing manufacturer. He decided he'd rather teach business than practice it, and in one interview he told a college dean that he'd made more than one decision that cost his company more than a million dollars.

As my father-in-law tells the story, the dean, whose entire experience in business was academic, was shocked. My father-in-law explained (probably somewhat impatiently) that he also made many decisions that earned the company millions of dollars. The entire point of business is to make more good decisions than bad ones. People aren't perfect, and sometimes even good decisions can turn out to be bad ones if conditions change.

But you have to be an adult and recognize mistakes. For eight years, we had a president who seemed to be under the illusion that all (or almost all) of his decisions were absolutely correct. He is, apparently, not particularly self-aware. He also holds a fairly rigid view of faith. To me, this shows a fundamental personal insecurity. This doesn't jibe with the public picture of Bush, of course, but insecurity is more likely to reveal itself in actions rather than posturing. Any claim of infallibility is also a flashing signal of insecurity.

None of this explains the lack of Republican support for the stimulus, though. As many people have commented, the lack of a serious alternative to the Prez's plan makes it look as if Republicans are betting their political future on the chance that America will fail. They seem to believe "I told you so" is the key to the mid-term elections.

I'm not saying that a single vote against the stimulus is a bad thing. Indeed, seven Democrats voted against it for various reasons--some good and some bad. But when the Republican party leadership enforces a block vote against one of the most important pieces of legislation to be passed this year, there's something wrong. This anti-patriotic tactic is cynical in the extreme. It might work, of course. The Democrats spent the last two years mostly blocking the last Prez, and they were rewarded. The difference here is that most of America seems to be on Obama's side, which means that the Republicans are saying no to most of America.

Well, they did that a long time ago, but that's another thing entirely.

Jon Worley is feeling particularly in-the-Beltway this week.