To quote President Barack Obama and Rahm Emmanuel

President Obama gave an interview to the Des Moines Register last Wednesday and upon being asked whether he regrets pursuing "ObamaCare" rather than focusing more on the economy, President Obama answered as follows,

"Absolutely not. Remember the context. First of all, Mitch McConnell has imposed an ironclad filibuster from the first day I was in office. And that's not speculation."

Keep in mind here that Mr. McConnell was then and still is the Senate Minority Leader, and that in 2009 upon Minnesota's Al Franken being seated, Democrats held 60 seats in the Senate and as a result a GOP filibuster was not possible.

The argument that cancer stricken Ted Kennedy and terminally ill Robert Byrd were unable to take their seats to vote to end this "ironclad" Republican filibuster fails as well as Republicans, in small numbers to be sure, crossed the aisle on at least three separate occasions as three Republican Senators voted for the February 2009 stimulus bill, five for the Lilly Ledbetter bill and nine for an expansion of the state children's health program.

As President Obama's then Chief of Staff and now Mayor of Chicago Rahm Emmanuel so elegantly put it.