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Kent Conrad signals what may lay ahead in order to get the bill through.

Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) made clear his openness to applying budget reconciliation to healthcare, a position he opposed prior to this week’s special election in Massachusetts, is contingent on the content of the bill.

His comments lend weight to speculation that congressional Democratic leaders plan to have the House pass the Senate healthcare reform without changes, then pass a second bill with changes hashed out between the two chambers’ leaders and the White House.

This is going to be tricky, but it can still be done. It’s really all about the Dems having the will to do the damn thing.

-Ian

Early Evening Music

To hell with it.  Time to rock.

—Jason

QotD II

KD, after breaking out a long chain of despairing reader emails:

And remember: I and my readers are mostly the sober, pragmatic sorts. Willing to compromise. Sensitive to political realities. Etc. And even we’re disgusted. I can’t remember ever being as embarrassed to be a Democrat as I am today.

I’m hoping that by tomorrow everyone will have climbed down off the ledge, but, sheesh, it’s been a dispiriting day.  Even beyond the political realities of scrapping HCR after having come so close, the meta-politics have simply been catastrophic.  Guys: The Republicans are laughing at you today.  Your voters, though, they’re not laughing at all.

—Jason

Oh, Barney

I love me some Barney Frank, but he has been front and center in the wankery line today and last night. He begins to walk it back some.

“I take it back…I would want assurances that we were going to amend the health care tax piece,” Frank said.

-Ian

Snowe Again

Fuck all!

We’re starting to pick up hints that the White House is making another serious bid to pick up the vote of Sen. Olympia Snowe. Really?

That should work out just fucking great.

-Ian

Weak

Awful.  Beyond awful.

I thought that over the years I’d become somewhat inured to Democratic fecklessness, but I have to admit that I am stunned by today’s outpouring of spinelessness.

—Jason

More Fail

Southers out as TSA nom.

Obviously, if we continue to compromise, the Republicans will stop kicking us in the nuts.  Also, this will make Labor extremely happy.

—Jason

Whiskey Rumination

The Dems are going to get SLAUGHTERED in November.

-Ian

QotD

Klein:

The loss in Massachusetts was a terrible disappointment to Democrats. But it can be explained away. Martha Coakley was a terrible candidate. Scott Brown ran an excellent campaign. These things happen.

But the reaction congressional Democrats have had to Coakley’s loss has been much more shattering. It has been a betrayal.

Yup.

Obama’s post-election statement is also The Very Bad. Particularly, I love the idea that somehow “jamming” healthcare through in the wake of the Election That Somehow Changed Everything in America is bad for Democracy.  Seriously, does anyone think that Republicans would put their agenda on hold following similar losses?  It turns out, they would not!

—Jason

Meltdown

Apparently, the Democratic caucus in Congress is now in full panic/retreat mode.  Barney Frank is running around telling people that HCR is dead and that they should grow up and welcome their New Republican Overlords or whatever.  Evan Bayh and Lieberman have already made their positions clear, and etc., etc., etc.  It’s a stampede.

Keep in mind that this has happened because the Democrats have been reduced to a nineteen-seat majority in the U.S. Senate.

This really is the worst major political party in the history of organized human governance.

—Jason

“Waterboarding Wins”

That’s Marc Thiessen’s take-away from last night’s Senate election in MA.

—Jason

Pain Caucus

Awesome shit from JBerg.  I suppose I could comment on the rich irony of a fat, talentless, legacy case whose most significant contribution to human society has been a badly deranged book-length treatment of political history and a well-known slag of the French delivering a lecture about “hard work” and the perils of charity, but, you know, fuck.

Please note that this is what passes for elite conservative thought today: Jonah Frickin’ Goldberg telling the Haitians to suck it because they had the audacity to get crushed by a major natural disaster.

—Jason

Tru Dat!

As Kennedy reminded his party 30 years ago, “If the Democrats run for cover, if we become pale carbon copies of the opposition, we will lose — and deserve to lose. The last thing this country needs is two Republican parties.”

What do you want to bet they run?

-Ian

Haiti Rescue

Again, much better than bombing people!

Stick around to hear her sing.

(via)

—Jason

Congress and the Green Lantern Theory

Yglesias:

Nothing about losing an election forces you to bend to the will of the guy who won—just ask the Republicans who lost in 2006, then lost in 2008, then opposed everything Obama proposed, and are now thrilled to have 41 votes in the Senate. The option of responding to this setback with determination exists. There’s no rule preventing the House from passing the Senate health care bill. For that matter, there’s no rule preventing the reconciliation process from being used to implement a carbon tax with the revenue split between rebates, investments in clean energy, and deficit reduction. That’s not going to happen, but thereason it’s not going to happen is that Democratic members of congress don’t want to do it. They could go down in history as the people who took bold action to solve that problem, but they prefer not to.

This is so!  And, unlike the realm of foreign policy, this is one of those areas where will actually matters.  If they had the will, that is, Democrats could simply run roughshod over Republican opposition.  They could shore up their own caucus and punish those members who refuse to play along.  They could employ reconciliation.  More drastically, they could alter the rules of the Senate and get rid of the filibuster.

But doing these things might earn them the Magical Frowns of David Broder, and so they don’t have the will to do them.  David Broder will write mean things about them anyway, of course.  People without adequate health insurance will continue to die needlessly, but the Democrats will have made an attempt to appease the unappeasable Village appetite for bashing them, and that, to them, will have been enough.

Yes, I’m in a foul mood.

—Jason

Senator Regularguy

Way to go, MA!

I’m Scott Brown,

I’m from Wrentham,

I drive a truck, and I am nobody’s senator but yours.

Thank you very much.

No, Scott, thank you!

—Jason

Wanker of the Day

Evan Bayh.  Surprise!

The political calculus is simple: The Dems face a rough 2010 no matter what.  If they finish HCR, they can limit their losses.  If they fail, it’ll be a rout.

—Jason