Tom Harkin has pretty much caved, although I can’t say that I blame him. Reid swung for the fences and struck out. Some people, including myself and apparently including Rahm Emanuel, warned that Reid was taking an unnecessary risk by buckling under to well-meaning progressive pressure to put the public option in the base bill. As we predicted, the bill got picked apart and held up for ransom. We could have had a trigger as a starting point in negotiations. Now, we will not even have that. The gauntlet has been laid down, and strengthening the bill in Conference will be pretty much impossible. With progressives both in Congress and in the general population so disappointed and frustrated, there is a good chance that no bill will pass at all. I tried to warn people that procedure matters. We’ll see what comes out of the Democratic Senate Caucus meeting tonight. I am not optimistic.
Stymied
