IS IT SOMETHING WE SAID?

It's being reported that Ben Nelson is on board now and therefore Harry Reid has his 60 votes for the health care bill.

I won't believe this is a done deal until I see it, but if it is, and if Nelson really was the final cat to be herded, I wonder if at least part of what got him on board (in addition, obviously, to huge compromises and bribes) was precisely the fact that now he can go to all the Real Americans back in Nebraska and say this can't be that much of a pinko-commie bill if Howard Dean and Keith Olbermann and all the other sandal-wearing DFHs don't like it. If that's a part of it, I'm guessing it's a small part, but hey, you never know. If we grumpy traitors made it easier for "centrists" to sell this to True Americans, then, far from being "destructive," as progressive supporters of the bill described us, we may have, in a small way, helped put it over the top. But hey, no need to thank us.

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And by the way, if you're having as much trouble with the new-and-not-particularly-improved comments as I am, my apologies. I don't know what's going on, either. I'll try to get it resolved, though it may take a while.

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UPDATE, EVENING: Well, I figured Joe Lieberman wouldn't be the last roadblock, and I knew I shouldn't bet the rent money on Nelson's yes vote being the end of it. So Stupak thinks what's been agreed to isn't draconian enough -- and he's coordinating with the Republicans? Can't say I'm surprised.

I've assumed for months that this was going to fail -- it seemed crazy to me that the discussion we all were having this week was "Should progressives kill the bill?" when it seemed obvious, still, that conservatives (among whom I include so-called centrists) were actually going to kill it -- and then this morning I thought I'd been wrong all along. No, I don't think I was wrong all along. I don't think this is going to happen. And of course it would come down to abortion, so Republicans can say both "Health care reform would have been the end of civilization as we know it" and "You didn't get health care reform because there was no pleasing the liberal baby-killers." Because the failure to get this done will be blamed on us, not Stupak and his GOP allies.