As the Left is at pains to make clear these days, Senate Republicans are guilty of a bit of equivocating when they refer to passage of Obamacare through reconciliation as “the nuclear option.” If one wants to be an originalist about that particular dysphemism, it first referred to the attempted suspension of the filibuster through a point of order — seeking a parliamentary ruling that would find the filibuster unconstitutional — and was considered as a means of overcoming Democratic stonewalling of Bush judicial nominees in 2005.

Reconciliation, by contrast, is a process the scope and application of which is established by law and not merely by Senate rules. So it is not technically fair to call Democrats hypocrites for opposing the nuclear option in 2005 but supporting reconciliation in 2010. But it is equally disingenuous for Democrats to suggest that they stand on a distinction between the two processes as a matter of principle. The fact remains that the Democrats have spent two months thoroughly contorting their health-care bill in an effort to shoe-horn it into a reconciliation process for which it was clearly not designed. More awkward still is the insistence by distrustful House Democrats that the Senate “reconcile” the bill with with the budget before they pass the bill itself — a move that moderate Senate Democrats rightly think is suspect:

“I don’t know of any way, I don’t know of any way where you can have a reconciliation bill pass before the bill that it is meant to reconcile passes,” said [Sen. Kent] Conrad [D.,N.D.], who would be a central figure on the Senate floor if Democrats embark on the complicated process. ”I don’t know how you would deal with the scoring. I don’t know how I could look you in the eye and say this package reduces the deficit. It’s kind of got the cart before the horse.”

So while reconciliation is not the “nuclear option,” the abuse of it accomplishes the same goal — an end-around on the rule that makes the Senate the Senate. (Cue the cries of “the Republicans did it on tax cuts!”, which are perfectly irrelevant to this discussion.) If the Democrats were so interested, they could pursue the end of the filibuster just as the Republicans did with a much smaller caucus in 2005. At least that would be intellectually honest. But Senate Democrats won’t do that, because at the end of the day they like the 60-vote threshold every bit as much as Republicans do.

Don’t take my word for it, just listen to Sens. Barack Obama (D., Ill.), Hillary Clinton (D., N.Y.), Harry Reid (D., Nev.) et. al. rise in a stirring defense of the principle of the filibuster against brute majoritarianism:

Democrats support reconciliation for Obamacare because it lets them have majoritarianism now and the filibuster later. That’s it and that’s all. They should just admit it.