I agree with your points somewhat, though there’s been a very strong pro-choice push to put their language back in. Keeping the Stupak amendment and the trigger option would be the intelligent course—since Pelosi can strong arm the libs in her chamber to accept the inevitable and since passage is impossible in the Senate unless this is done. But both Reid and Pelosi are ideologues—so who knows?
Nelson has plenty of other complaints. So does Bayh—who wrote an op-ed piece just the other day complaining about the huge deficits we’re facing. Then there’s Dorgan and Lincoln facing tough elections—and Warner who’s a former businessman and understands the dangers of deficit spending. Besides, he comes from VA where his side was clobbered recently. And there’s Webb, also from VA—and so it goes.
Hopefully we can keep the vote to close debate at 58 or 59.
It wont be easy for them, but it’s going to be a nailbiter either way.
A couple of other upbeat points:
David Broder, the dean of liberal journalists, will come out with a Washington Post column tomorrow that tears the bill to shreds for its fiscal irresponsibility. It’s a devastating piece.
Bonnie Erbe, another liberal journalist who writes for US News and World Report, came out with a scathing denouncement of the deal that paid Landrieu hundreds of millions to vote yes to proceed.
So the liberal media is not altogether on this. Some important voices are being raised at a critical time—and they carry weight with a lot of politicians. Broder is especially regarded highly.