AND THEY'RE FIGHTING AMONG EACH OTHER – THE SCOTT BROWN EFFECT – AT 8:48 A.M. ET:  The Democrats are an unhappy bunch today.

Look, I don't know if Scott Brown will be sworn in quickly enough to be at the State of the Union speech tonight.  But, if you're a Democrat, you know that Brown would be a bigger attraction than President Obama.  As the song "America," from "West Side Story," put it, "Smoke on your pipe and put that in."

The Politico notes that the troops are fighting amongst themselves:

President Barack Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will be all smiles as the president arrives at the Capitol for his State of the Union speech Wednesday night, but the happy faces can’t hide relationships that are fraying and fraught.

The anger is most palpable in the House, where Pelosi and her allies believe Obama’s reluctance to stake his political capital on health care reform in mid-2009 contributed to the near collapse of negotiations now.

But sources say there are also signs of strain between Reid and White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, and relations between Democrats in the House and Democrats in the Senate are hovering between thinly veiled disdain and outright hostility.

In a display of contempt unfathomable in the feel-good days after Obama’s Inauguration, freshman Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev.) stood up at a meeting with Pelosi last week to declare: “Reid is done; he’s going to lose” in November, according to three people who were in the room.

Titus denied Tuesday evening that she had singled out Reid, but she acknowledged that she said Democrats would be “f—-ed” if they failed to heed the lessons of Massachusetts, where Republican Scott Brown won Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat last week.

COMMENT:  Such language.  Ah, how the party of George McGovern and Jimmah Carter has fallen. 

The last time the president addressed Congress, a Republican inappropriately shouted at him, "You lie."  You know, I wouldn't be that shocked if Rep. Titus jumped up and said something along those lines tonight.  I just hope she keeps it clean.

January 27, 2010