Jon Walker and I are laughing uncontrollably at the Republicans on the Senate floor.  McCain is an angry old crank reliving the last campaign.  And Tom Coburn — who never met a spending bill he didn’t hate — is arguing passionately against cutting Medicare Advantage, which Jon Walker recently said “may have the dubious distinction of being the biggest and most wasteful form of corporate welfare in the country.”

Ah, but Coburn wasn’t always quite so enamored of Medicare Advantage.  Writing about his own Medicare reform bill, the “Patients’ Choice Act,” Coburn says (PDF):

The only alternative to Medicare bureaucracy for seniors is Medicare Advantage, a program dominated by HMOs, which doctors know can be as bad as traditional Medicare when it comes to doubting their professional judgment.

Kind of like watching Waiting for Godot starring well-trained ferrets.