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"Congress needs to listen, and the American people need to help with this process," Sen Evan Bayh told George Stephanopoulous yesterday, attempting to misdirect viewers' attention from what was going on behind the politics-as-usual curtain. If we can believe what we read — not to mention our lying eyes — listening to the American people was the last thing on the minds of Indiana and DC powerbrokers maneuvering to get their favored candidate in place for next fall's election.

"Evan Bayh may have been a moderate, but he was still a Democrat to the end," writes a leery-eyed Dan Riehl re the Indiana Senator's attempted "coup" in "unexpectedly" announcing his retirement one day before the filing deadline. Politico explains:

The idea was that no Democrat would qualify for the primary ballot, and the party’s state central committee could tap their favored candidate.

The "central committee" quashing the vox populi? We're shocked, shocked. They may not get away with it, though. Liberal contender Tamyra D'Ippolito is scrambling under the wire to get the necessary signatures, and Republicans are "expected to call for Bayh to support an extension," notes Dan. Put this final bit from The Daily Caller in the category of we record, you decide (don't know enough about it to know, but we do know a bit about human nature and Rahm Emanuel's take-no-prisoners modus operandi):

Hoosier politics took an unexpected turn Monday night when Democratic Senate candidate Tamyra d’Ippolito accused the White House of conspiring with party officials to secretly draft Rep. Baron Hill to run against her …

"Don't you find that strange, Rahm Emanuel coming to Indiana"? she asked, adding that Emanuel was sent by the White House to "find a blue dog to put into power."

[S]he was informed Monday that Hill, a blue dog who represents Indiana’s 9th District in the House, already has the necessary signatures and is sitting on them until the deadline. She accused White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel of colluding with Hill and the Democratic party county chairs to secretly supplant her as the nominee.

"Fortunately, two can play at Rahm Emanuel's 'never-let-a-crisis-go-to-waste' game," we wrote on the eve of our very first Tea Party last March, quoting from an earlier February post, "Santelli reads the tea leaves": "Thank you, Mr. President, for your assist in awakening the forgotten man."

However things work out, it's pretty clear the Indiana powerbrokers didn't hear Scott Brown and the voters of Massachusetts January 19. Turning Brown's Kennedy-vs-the-people's-seat rallying cry on its head, they betray their business-as-usual belief that it's not the people's seat, it's the Bayh seat!

Update: Instalanche! Thank you, Professor Reynolds.