Last fall, when then-Congressman Alan Grayson of Florida aired a campaign ad calling his Republican opponent Daniel Webster "Taliban Dan," a collective, dismissive groan rumbled from the political commentariat. "Has Alan Grayson gone too far?" pondered Politico. But the question, despite the ad's shortcomings, should have been: Is Dan Webster, an evangelical Christian and staunch social conservative, too radical for the United States Congress?

It might look like Rep. Bart Stupak, the crucial holdout for more draconian restrictions on abortion in the health-care bill, was swayed, finally, by the executive order reiterating that The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act upholds the ban on federal funding of abortion. For months Stupak, carrying the water of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, had insisted that the Senate bill failed to ensure that federal funds wouldn't somehow help pay for an abortion. He was cheered on not only by the USCCB but by the hardcore anti-abortion right, which largely didn't want health-care reform anyway.