SCOTT BROWN JUST COST HIMSELF A MILLION BUCKS

Remember that book deal Brown was seeking a couple of weeks ago? Well, it absolutely would have been worthwhile for a publisher to give him a huge advance, even though there's nothing to learn about him that you can't glean from one back issue of People, because, as we've seen in the past year or so, right-wingers will grab a copy of any half-baked book that reinforces their sense of group solidarity and functions as a two-minute hate against Democrats in type.

Ah, but Brown is now apostate:

Newly-seated Republican Sen. Scott Brown (Mass.) on Monday joined Democrats in voting to move forward on their $15 billion jobs bill.

Brown crossed the aisle after Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) nixed an $85 billion, bipartisan plan in favor of a more narrowly-focused bill....

And that means he just lost himself book sales in the hundreds of thousands. Here's some of the initial reaction (click to enlarge):



They. Will. Never. Forget. Scott, you blew it.

Of course, legislatively, this was Harry Reid's gift to the GOP, a bill so meaningless that Brown and four other Republicans could vote for cloture, and thus give the GOP the opportunity to claim a certain level of reasonableness, without any possibility that Republicans' goal of destroying the country and blaming it on Obama and the Democrats will be at risk:

Jon Chait has the definitive take on why this happened:

It tells you that these [GOP] Senators recognized that the legislation is essentially symbolic, and therefore a good time to burnish their moderate credentials rather than spend political capital to advance their party's agenda.

Exactly.... At around $15 billion, the so-called "jobs" bill represents around one-tenth of one percent of the total output of the American economy over the year ahead, and less than one-half of one percent of total federal spending over that period. It doesn't get much more symbolic than that.

The only way it's not symbolic is for Scott Brown's future bestseller-list status (and presidential aspirations). Well, thanks for playing, Scott. You're yesterday's wingnut hero.