If Colorado’s U.S. Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper ever want a glimpse at some profiles in courage, they don’t have to look far in the Senate chamber. They’ll find several among fellow Democrats on their own side of the aisle, in fact.

Seven Senate Democrats and an independent showed pluck in voting with the Senate’s Republicans this week to reopen government after its longest shutdown in history. And they did the right thing. As a result, the Senate passed legislation late Monday that could pave the way to reopen the government before the end of the week. 

The eight senators from other states who crossed over to make it possible aren’t household names in Colorado and don’t bear repeating here. What matters is Bennet and Hickenlooper  weren’t among them.

Instead, the two kept playing politics. They joined the other Senate Democrats who feared stepping out of line. They ritually denounced the deal with Republicans that mustered 60 votes to reopen. Trash talk is expected, after all, to placate their party’s noisy and reckless left wing. Fringe Democrats have outsized clout in Colorado politics these days, and our play-it-safe senators aren’t about to cross them.

In other words, the courageous eight did the dirty work for the likes of Bennet and Hickenlooper. The eight helped resume frozen pay to some 55,000 federal employees and their households in Colorado. That includes pay for air traffic controllers and Transportation Security Administration agents who had been under unprecedented strain at Denver and Colorado Springs airports. Now, scores of flights that had been canceled can resume, too. 

In fact, wide-ranging services have been idled or limited for weeks. From national parks to small-business loans, operations have been largely stalled. Environmental inspections by federal regulators have been delayed. Benefits verification and card issuance for Social Security and Medicare have been halted. Proceedings in immigration courts were suspended. The list goes on. Now, the Democratic Senate filibuster that had kept all of it frozen is at end.

That’s right; the eight did the heavy lifting for Colorado’s feckless duo. And Bennet and Hickenlooper got to reap the rewards of resuming federal operations even as they postured about how the agreement fails to extend health insurance tax credits.

“We should reopen the government, but I refuse to do it at the expense of families who are simply trying to pay for health care,” pontificated Bennet in a prepared statement issued by his office, as reported in The Gazette. “Coloradans deserve better.” 

Hickenlooper chimed in with some cheap talk of his own: “We will continue to fight every day for universal health care until every American has coverage.”

You’d think such bold words would be accompanied by at least a few barbs at the Democrats who had voted to reopen. Didn’t they scuttle plans to hold the government hostage as a bargaining chip for extending tax credits? 

Bennet and Hickenlooper wouldn’t go there, either. They live under the radar on Capitol Hill and know there’s no risk in tossing brickbats at Republicans from a safe distance.

In the end, the Senate Democratic leadership that had engineered the shutdown had nothing to show for it. Neither did the obedient foot soldiers, like Bennet and Hickenlooper, who had followed orders and kept marching in lockstep.

“They got nothing in this agreement that they couldn’t have gotten on Day One,” aptly observed a U.S. House Republican, Colorado’s 5th Congressional District U.S. Rep. Jeff Crank.

But even if Bennet and Hick came up empty handed after helping force the catastrophic closure of the federal government — they kept everyone in their party happy. For that, they’ll no doubt be remembered, someday.