Last year, speaking at the Heritage Foundation,
Sen. John McCain said that the Republicans laid the groundwork for reconciliation because of how they had used it:

MCCAIN: I fully recognize that Republicans have in the past engaged in using reconciliation to further the party’s agenda. I wish it had not been done then, and I hope it will not be done now that the groundwork has been laid.

But now that reconciliation, a simple up or down vote, is actually going to be used to pass a mish-mash of conservative GOP and Democratic ideas under Obama's watch? Suddenly it is the nuclear end of the world: