This is incredibly discouraging, and even more so because most blogs don't seem to me to be discussing the right things--strange framing and too much haring off into irrelevancies and lefties feeling our feelings.

I don't know, though, if Obama had any choice here. Reid seemed determined no matter what the WH said to him to take this route--his Hail Mary pass to win reelection.  (And sure enough, lefties have been treating him as a hero.) I think Schumer and others citing pressure from progressives is cya for Reid, as is the nonsense about "don't bet against the leader."

If the public option was defeated in the amendment process in the Senate, then every Conservadem would say "see, it can't get 60 votes, therefore you'd better not add it in conference". And then when Obama and Reid and Pelosi try to stick it back in during the conference committee, we'd get scary quotes from the likes of Lieberman and Lincoln that they would consider filibustering a bill that had the public option. Then we'd have folks saying "they should just dump the P.O., otherwise this will all go down in flames". This scenario, where the rubber meets the road, is going to happen eventually no matter what.

Now, you are right that maybe there is more pressure to not filibuster the final bill versus the pre-conference version. But I think that is a real fine line. From what you are saying, if it gets filibustered before conference then it is done for the year. If that's true, then I think the stakes are just as high in both phases of the process. A Dem Senator willing to screw his party on its biggest issue of the decade is either persuadable in the final analysis, or he's not. If you can't persuade Holy Joe now (and I think he can be persuaded by Obama), then you'll never be able to persuade him short of capitulating entirely and eliminating the public option.

I'd rather see no health reform than one with no public option. Sorry, that's my line in the sand. Liberals have compromised over and over and over again despite having a majority in the House and Senate. There comes a time when Conservadems have to compromise as well. If they won't -- reconciliation. Obama knew this might eventually happen, that's why he laid the groundwork for it.

But this is the right battlefield and the right time. Can Obama get these Dems in line or not on health care reform? We'll find out.

If a bill was going to get rejected it should have been real health care reform--a single payer bill.  I blame the president for aiming for the compromise from the beginning.  

I'm highly suspicious or your plan to enact a robust public plan.  The level of subterfuge required to engage in the process you prescribe is simply counterproductive to passing such monumental legislation.  It's too clever by half.  Obama tried to be too clever and is paying the price (assuming he really is following the strategy you say he is following--and hey, that's cool you sort of made news--that you were on that call with the president--where according to Ezra Obama winked at you guys and implied he's down with the process you prescribe).  

Anyway, I am not convinced Obama is even on the same team as the grumpy liberals.  Or even on your team, for that matter.  In fact, I highly suspect Holy Joe is doing exactly what Obama wants.

In any case no bill is better than the bill Obama seemed ready to sign.

The progressives can claim at least a small victory--defeating a deeply corrupt bill--if that does happen.

But it ain't over yet.

  [ No condescension there!  ]

    Because, naturally, if they'd understood at all, they'd have seen the issues and the stakes just as you make them out to be, huh?

   Gee!  It's those damn liberals screwing everything up again!!!

"What was truly impressive about the decade past, however, was our unwillingness, as a nation, to learn from our mistakes."