Did you hear the one about the Republican senator who thinks health care reform shouldn't be allowed to pass with less than 80 votes?

Well, it turns out the senator (Chuck Grassley) wasn't kidding, but Rachel Maddow mocks him anyway, and she's joined by the WNBA's Sue Hicks and Gov. Howard Dean.

How unfair to poor Chuck.

The backdrop for this is a freakout by the GOP on the question of whether or not Democratic senators should sidestep the filibuster, allowing Democrats to pass important pieces of health care reform (including the public option) with a simple majority.

Republicans claim they would be disenfranchised if Democrats were allowed to pass laws in the U.S. Senate without a supermajority, but you need only look at the actual votes cast for senators to figure out where the real supermajority is.

Here's the numbers, including votes cast for appointees' predecessors in CO, DE, IL, and NY:

Votes cast for the 40 Republican senators: 44.2 million

Votes cast for the 60 Democratic senators: 82.3 million

If you subtract votes cast for the 5 Democratic senators who would consider supporting filibuster, their vote total drops to 79.8 million. Whether or not you do that, though, the bottom-line is that nearly twice as many people voted for Democratic senators as Republicans.

The next time Republicans want to whine about getting disenfranchised, they oughta' take it up with the voters who put the Democrats in office.