With the help of West Virginia's newly minted Sen. Carte Goodwin, who will fill the shoes of the late Sen. Robert Byrd, Democrats Tuesday were able to end a Republican-led filibuster to prevent the extension of unemployment benefits. This sorry battle was a sad testament to the toxic state of the ideological divide in this nation.

What is so striking is that the Republicans chose to make a stand on a relatively minor front in the bigger context. The extension will cost $34 billion -- not a small sum, but relatively insignificant when compared to the $862 billion stimulus and a drop in the bucket in the nation's $13 trillion debt.

In the past, Congress extended jobless benefits whether the president was a Republican or Democrat (and at least twice during the Bush administration). But this time the Republicans were all about purity and insisted they would not vote for a benefits extension unless a spending offset was made.

It would have made a nice debating point if the outcome were not so vital to struggling Americans -- 2.5 million, with another 350,000 by the end of this week, according to the White House. Some 173,900 Pennsylvanians have seen their benefits cut. To them, the budget deficit is not a difference of opinion about economic remedies and whether government spending is stimulating the economy; it's about paying mortgages and buying food.

Moreover, hypocrisy stalks the Republicans' position. Will they now seek offsets in the bloated defense budget, including the stupendous cost of waging two wars? Will they insist on equivalent spending reductions before giving more tax cuts? As President Barack Obama said, "... after years of championing policies that turned a record surplus into a massive deficit, the same people who didn't have any problem spending hundreds of billions of dollars on tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans are now saying we shouldn't offer relief to middle-class Americans ... who really need help."

With the honorable exception of the two Republicans from Maine who voted to end this callous filibuster, the party of family values has become the party of devaluing families, because that is what happens when unemployment takes provisions from the providers. This political blindness to real suffering must end.

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