Remember how the news yesterday was that Sen. Joe Lieberman(I,D,R,CT) was not going to filibuster on the Health Care Bill after all ? And Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D,NV)said that he was assured JL wasn't going to do it?
Tonight, we find out why Harry was so chipper about this:
Reid for the first time publicly raised the possibility that lawmakers would not be able to meet their – and Obama's – self-imposed deadline of completing work on health care by year's end.
"We're not going to be bound by any timelines. We need to do the best job we can for the American people," he said after the weekly closed-door meeting of rank-and-file Democrats.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Don't worry.
A few hours later, Reid's office revised his remarks.
They still would like to finish the health care bill "this year."
There is no reason why we can't have a transparent and thorough debate in the Senate and still send a bill to the president by Christmas," said spokesman Jim Manley.
Got whiplash?
Simple solutions to simple problems. If your caucus is worried about a filibuster by one of its part time members, just sort of punt the problem over to the next campaign cycle. There. See how easy this is ? We have regained control of the situation! If we don't have a timeline.... oh wait.
Uh, mmmm, didn't the President want that thing.... this year ?
Imagine this as an episode in Alternate Reality Universe-
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Senator Bones on the Public Option: "It's dead, Jim. Now we can go home for the holidays."
Jim: (@#$%^&*(!@#$%^&*!@#$%^&*!!!! I have to cover for him again! ) "No it's not, Senator Spock. We still have to go where No Speaker Has Gone Before."
Senator Bones: Does this mean we have to go back to the Holodeck again and keep pretending we are in FDR's time? I don't want to do that anymore. I want to go to the Pleasure Planet for vacation.
Jim: Yes sir.
Senator Bones: How do we get out of this loop ?
Jim: Call JL up and tell him he can't have the captain's chair unless he starts following the Prime Directive. You can do it. Here's the communicator. Call him in here, and I'll just stun him with the phaser long enough to alter his memory. Tell him he voted for it. Tell him thanks, and now we can play as soon as we do the final vote. Okay?
Senator Bones: I don't think that's in the rules.
Jim: There are no rules. This is the holodeck.
Senator Bones. Okay.
Insurance Lobbbyist Suddenly Materializes.
Insurance Lobbyist. There are too rules, and I make them. Give me that phaser.
Jim: No, I'm sick of this. Get back or I'll use it, now! GET BACK ! Security, come to the Senate holodeck stat ! Lobbyist breach !
Sound of buzzing and crashing. Scene fade, cut to commercial.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
The article also claims to have Seen the Ghost of Christmas Past for Wellpointe, aka the Republican "version" of a health insurance bill. From the description in the article, it sounds very much like the version Blue Cross lobbyists wrote for Southern CA Congressperson Kevin Nunes, HR 2520, that was touted by Tom McClintock(R,Carpetbag, Elk Grove Automall) as he did his Teabagger Town Hall travelling circus this late summer. So don't bother getting too worked up about it, because it was useless.
And then there is this from Time, which just came out:
Between next week's Veteran's Day recess and the subsequent Thanksgiving break, that means it may well be December before the bill even gets to the Senate floor.
If that is so, the best-case scenario becomes this: both the House and the Senate pass their versions of the health care bill before leaving at the end of the year, and a conference committee begins its work while they are gone; a conference committee report, while controversial, would likely pass a Democratic Congress. If not, a loss of momentum could dampen the sense of inevitability that, as much as anything else, has brought health care reform to the point of being nearly within reach.
Read more: http://www.time.com/...
Pay attention to the last sentence. The Republican Party has been doing major brain fuju on your expectations all summer by declaring this or that aspect alive or dead, such as Senator Snowe's vote in exchange for a trigger, or the very existence of the Public Option. By repeating talking points, they make these things seem inevitable. The last thing we need now is to let them begin a new theme: That the bill itself is not a sure thing, not because of insistence over any one item, but because of the duplicity of one or two Senators.
So it's time to make our own Alternate Reality Universe.