After reading David Brooks’ column this morning, I had the same reaction Dave Schuler had:

I agree with this Brooks column probably more than any other of his.

And the line from Brooks’ column that most captured my attention was this one:

[Obama] has opened up many opportunities for intelligent Republicans and moderate Democrats to constructively offer amendments to improve the bill and bring it closer to fiscal sanity.

Among those “many opportunities,” Brooks’ identifies “credible amendment[s] to cut costs,” “amendments to impose a cap directly” on “the tax exemption on employer-provided health benefits,” amendments “to create separate malpractice courts and to otherwise reform the insane malpractice system,” and amendments “to beef up … wonky but important ideas like bundling hospital payments and increasing price transparency.”

Of those, I think Brooks might be overly optimistic about the chances for tort-reform amendments. In the President’s speech Wednesday night, I understood him to draw a clear line in the sand, i.e., his administration will study tort reform, but that’s not part of the near-term legislative effort.

Beyond that exception, Brooks’ list seems … about right. And Republicans who are sincerely interested in making the most of the deck of cards they’ve been dealt will seize these opportunities. Brooks calls them “intelligent” Republicans. That adjective, like Brooks’ list, seems … about right.

I once had empathy for GOP complaints that their health-care-reform ideas were not being given substantive consideration. But the more I’ve watched this debate unfold, the more I’m convinced their definition of “substantive consideration” is terribly skewed. When you’re the minority party — and especially when you’re the super-minority party — you don’t get to draw the framework or outline the starting point. The most you get to do (short of screaming “You lie!”) is chip away at the edges; tighten up the bill’s language; clarify its provisions. Republicans who appreciate this — who understand their position and make the most of it — are the “intelligent” ones.

In the days ahead, we’ll see how many, if any, of them are left.