Just in time for the President to fly off to Copenhagen to accomplish squat, “his” health care bill is dying in the Senate:
The bill’s supporters had said earlier that they thought they had secured Mr. Lieberman’s agreement to go along with a compromise they worked out to overcome an impasse within the party.
But on Sunday, Mr. Lieberman told the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, to scrap the idea of expanding Medicare and to abandon the idea of any new government insurance plan, or lose his vote.
Here’s where it gets really tricky. If Obama skips (or even cuts short) Copenhagen to rally support for the Senate bill, and it still dies, then he loses three ways. If Obama keeps his trip as scheduled, then maybe he’ll lose only two ways. It was, after all, Obama who decided to stake his (our) prestige on a big result in Copenhagen, and who made health reform his signature domestic agenda item.
This is what we call “hoisted by his own petard.”
It’s also what we call “amateur hour at the White House.” Or we would call it an hour, had it not been going on for 11 damn months already.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member