Congressional Democrats have Republicans right where they -- and the White House -- want them when it comes to the Affordable Care Act.
In the month when it's possible the United States Supreme Court could rule that ACA subsidies can't be given to people who enroll on the federal site, 7 to 9 million could lose their mostly government funded health insurance.
Never mind the "mostly government funded" part or that some of them weren't able to keep the good insurance they had before the ACA.
What the Democrats, the White House and Big Media already have started doing is setting up Republicans to take the blame. So Republicans, who were not consulted in the writing of the bill and could only watch as Democrats used late-night budget shenanigans to get it passed, have hinted that they might support a temporary extension of the subsidies if the Supreme Court rules against them.
What's at stake, both Democrats and Republicans believe, is the 2016 presidential election. Republicans, should they coalesce around a candidate who can appeal to both moderates and conservatives, have an excellent shot at winning the White House. They're likely to face, after all, the worst Democratic candidate since, well, Barack Obama.
Former secretary of state, senator and first lady Hillary Clinton, the Democratic front-runner, is currently mired in scandal, gradually falling in the polls and unwilling to be forthcoming on the issues that dog her.
But should the Supreme Court rule the subsidies are illegal, the outcry will be deafening: "GOP Supreme Court appointees slash health care for millions," "Republicans get their wish as millions lose health care," "Obama blames Bush for health care losses."
It wouldn't stop until the polls closed on Nov. 8, 2016.
Indeed, the set-up already has begun. Witness, for instance, two sentences in the first paragraph of an Associated Press article run in the Times Free Press Thursday: "But would the court take away a benefit from so many people? Should the justices even consider such consequences?"
Your expected answer: "Of course they shouldn't."
So Republicans, who have rightly wanted to repeal in total the expensive, bureaucratic nightmare that is Obamacare, are in a fix. If the Supreme Court repeals the subsidies, they get blamed. If they suggest a temporary extension, they risk being called hypocrites. If they don't cheer in hopes the court will strike down the subsidies, they look like hypocrites to their own party.
They've been in the right all along, but you'll never know it.