HCR Update: Nothing to Marbel Over

WASHINGTON – MARCH 18: Congressional Republican leadership, including House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) (C) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) lead a bicameral group of Republicans into the House of Representatives Chamber ahead of a strategy meeting at the U.S. Capitol March 18, 2010 in Washington, DC. With House Democrats saying they will move forward with a health care reform legislation vote as early as this weekend, Republicans have remained unified in their opposition to the bill. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

If Republicans are spending a lot of time these days predicting doom for the Democrats, news photos seem to be casting more of a pall in their direction.

Approaching the climax of the health care reform battle, there’s an interesting resonance here between the Republican top dogs, the bronze Boehner and the likes of Samuel Adams, Robert E. Lee, Sam Houston, Helen Keller, Will Rogers, Father Junipero Serra, George Washington, Daniel Webster and all the others commemorated in the Capitol’s Statuary Hall collection.

Yes, Getty photographer Chip Somodevilla captures the figureheads of the “kill the bill/party of no” in an almost ghoulish light. More telling, though, is how the ring of statues reminds us — in the face of potentially historic legislation — history’s dust bin is filled with lesser mortal.