The last Roman Emperor, one Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (AD 37-AD 68) fiddled while Rome burned, we were all told as school children.

As breadlines form in America, plain old Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid plan to re-sod the National Mall (a bit trampled after the Inauguration to end all Inaugurations), pay $650 million to insure every American can realize their God-given and constitutional right to digital TV and a whole ginormous array of other liberal projects totaling about $1 trillion --all in the name of economic stimulus.

So what’s the difference between Nero and our duly elected Triumvirate?  Not so much if you believe the Nero legend, which you shouldn’t because the cat likely got a bad rap on the fiddle thing (see Tacitus, not that gossip monger Suetonius).

Obama and Pelosi and Reid are in the process of creating their very own and very real bad rep by ramming through the most expensive shuck and jive package of liberal projects in the history of this country, exploiting the legitimate hurt and palpable fear of a population to achieve next to nothing of stated intent.

Nero may have actually paid a lot from his own robe pockets to provide relief to Rome after the fire (he did a lot of bad stuff, too).  Obama and Pelosi and Reid are going to spend only your money, yea unto generations, to build a liberal political dynasty and increase the size of government, not rebuild the country’s infrastructure and create jobs as originally stated.  Instead of concrete and steel, there’s “sexually transmitted disease education ($335 million).”  How many laid-off auto workers are going to get jobs in that little gem of “economic stimulus?”

Enough details of the plan are now emerging to choke a woolly mammoth, but the legislative bullet train is moving so fast that we wouldn’t be surprised to see an extinct species cloning program added to the mix for good liberal measure.

Along the puke-producing way, however, a remarkable event occurred.  On Wednesday, Speaker Pelosi and her henchlings rammed through the vote on the 647-page, $819 billion (by that count) package.  The vote was 244-188.

The remarkable event?  Not one Republican, repeat, not one, voted for it, and 11 Democrats voted against it.

This does not mean the House Republicans have totally seen the conservative light on the road to extinction.  But under the circumstances, the House Republican leadership and the defiant, principled stand of 177 strong should be amply commended, directly and personally, by all conservatives.

Likewise, the eleven Democrats – Allen Boyd (Fla.), Bobby Bright (Ala.), Jim Cooper (Tenn.), Brad Ellsworth (Ind.), Parker Griffith (Ala.) Paul Kanjorski (Pa.), Frank Kratovil (Md.), Walt Minnick (Idaho), Collin Peterson (Minn.), Heath Shuler (N.C.) and Gene Taylor (Miss.) -- should be acknowledged for their courage in standing up to their President and their petty, vindictive, liberal dominatrix.  Those guys are going to need food tasters if they eat in the House cafeteria.

So what’s next?  The Senate.  Will Senate Republicans (and a few Democrats) create their own remarkable event and gut this shameful, deceptive travesty?

Only if they are pushed to the limits (and that means by you). 

This is no time for fiddling.