Surprise, surprise. The big-business-worshipping Blue Dogs, they who got slaughtered in the midterms last week, are (along with Big Media allies like the ever-reliable Lawrence O’Donnell) trying to push the myth that they lost big, not because they pressured Obama to go with a stimulus package that every economist worthy of the name said was too small to truly heal the economy quickly, but because of (get this) Nancy Pelosi.

CNN’s Candy Crowley recited Blue Dog doofus Jason Altmire’s “that San Francisco gay-lover Pelosi lost middle America!” spiel to the DCCC’s Chris Van Hollen this morning, no doubt expecting him to cower before the Blue Dogs as DC pols are wont to do. But this time at least, Van Hollen is willing to tell the Blue Dogs to get real — that this election was a referendum on the economy first and foremost, and that the Republicans once again are forced to take at least partial ownership of the failure if the economy (which as he points out was initially wrecked by the policies of a Republican president and Congress) if it doesn’t improve in another two years.

Van Hollen knows full well, I imagine, that the Blue Dogs did it to themselves. Way back in January, he knew from his own and Celinda Lake’s polling that the anti-choice and pro-business concessions that conservative Democrats like the Blue Dogs forced into the health care bill are a big part of what took Martha Coakley from a nineteen-point lead to a loss against Scott Brown in January. As even Joe Klein, who is no friend to progressives, is able to see, at every turn the Blue Dogs could have saved themselves, but they flatly, stupidly refused to do so. Even as late as July, they could have saved themselves if they hadn’t voted to gut the only legislation that could have saved them, the unemployment benefits extension. But their hatred for the average American, and their love for deep-pocketed anti-worker interests, won out to their detriment.