During the ugly late days of the debate on health reform, a minor skirmish broke out when a savvy journalist-of-the-right, David Weigel, got an organizer of a Tea Party event protesting the legislation to acknowledge that she'd been working with Jane Hamsher, who through her blog Firedoglake had become one of the sharpest critics of the legislation from the left. Hamsher objected that, while she knew the right-wing activist and they had planned to work together on other issues, such as drug legalization (supported by some of the libertarian elements of the movement), they had not actually joined forces around their shared opposition to health reform.

All pundits -- even those of us who foresaw that the strength of the Obama administration would be its capacity for patience -- should be hesitant about predictions after the latest round of sharp turns in American politics. But it seems likely that Republicans will have a bit of a scramble over the next few months in deciding what their stance toward the health-reform law should be. “Repeal and Replace” seemed to be the slogan of choice on Sunday night, but by Monday, a proclamation from Eric Erickson of RedState.com warned that "any Republican who says we will repeal and replace will themselves be replaced.