Harry Reid is doing his Judge Smails impression: "You'll get nothing and like it."

I hope he's talking about 60 votes for cloture, and not 60 votes to pass the bill. That would be un-democratic, wouldn't it (as if the necessity of 60 for cloture isn't bad enough)?

But I have a responsibility to get a bill to the Senate floor that will get 60 votes that we can proceed toward.

And right there is everything that is wrong with Harry Reid.

Gov/Dr Dean says what the point of having a 60 vote majority. . .

Show me the money- A majority of Democrats is like herding cats; or, to quote Will Rogers, "I don't belong to any organized political party. I'm a Democrat. . .

"But I have a responsibility to get a bill to the Senate floor that will get 60 votes that we can proceed toward . . ." even if the bill doesn't actually reform healthcare or insure any more of the uninsured.

Someone please tell me why I shouldn't send money to the Republican opponents of Reid and Baucus (D[?] - United Healthcare).

Interesting that he see the "good of the Senate" and the "good of the country" as distinct, if complementary ideas. That cherished comity, the grand ideal of Broderism, without which the country would be fucked. So much more important than the quality of life, the infant mortality rate, a woman getting her insurance cancelled after she is diagnosed with breast cancer because of past treatment for acne....

But the important thing is that Harry, Orrin, Olly and Evan can sit at teh same table and enjoy a collegial lunch of Senate Navy Bean Soup!!!

At this point I don't care what is in the Senate Finance bill and I'm pretty sure President Obama and Speaker Pelosi NEVER cared. Just get the bill out of committee, get it out of the Senate to conference, get the House bill out of conference, wait until Oct. 15th, then pass that sucker with fiftysomething votes. All this ink spilled on Max Baucus is a waste of time. He thinks he's steering the debate but he's got the Fisher Price steering wheel. It's in conference where the real action is going to happen and that action is going to look a lot like 'Eat it Max'.

Mushy, but better than nothing? Reid, such a spongy disorganism ...

BTW, did anyone read that horrible, "traitorous" Susan Estrich (center-left - ?) column a few days back about how we have the best health care going in the world, and better not mess with it? What the hell happened to that silly ninny? Is she turning Cohenish, or worse? Send her email ...

What matter is will "get 60 votes," which is more important, he said, than what he thinks "should be in the bill."

Steve, I think you might be groggy.

It seems we should expect something less than the full-blown Public Option, a foot in the door, but that is ok to begin.

Within a couple of years, the perfidy and treachery of the private insurers will be clear to all, and fewer people will be willing to defend them.

Comments like Dean's are stupid. OF COURSE we don't have 60 progressive votes.

Howling at the moon saying Baucus or Bayh should be a loyal party member is pointless.

Reid talks about "what to expect." I already know what to expect. And I expect that it won't be meaningful health care reform. Just more very-profitable-for-the-plutocrats sickness intervention

Howling at the moon saying Baucus or Bayh should be a loyal party member is pointless. -Frank C.

No, what is pointless is having a leader who is too afraid to lead. What is pointless is allowing behavior like Bayh's and Baucus' and Lieberman's to be rewarded with committee chairs and more power.

We don't need 60 progressives to get cloture, but if you're a fucking Democrat and you have 60 votes and the party leadership brings a bill to the floor, you'd better fucking support it then, even if you don't vote for it later.

Otherwise, what does is mean to be in the party? Cloture should be on goddamned autopilot now.

Could someone please inform Harry Reid that it only takes 51 votes for a bill to pass the Senate?

We really need a new Majority leader who knows how to be in the majority.

But I have a responsibility to get a bill to the Senate floor that will get 60 votes that we can proceed toward.

Since when do you need 60 votes? Show me where in the Constitution it says you need 60 votes to pass a bill. He needs 51 votes to pass a bill, not 60.

All this ink spilled on Max Baucus is a waste of time. He thinks he's steering the debate but he's got the Fisher Price steering wheel.

Posted by: joejoejoe on July 28, 2009

Memorable!

Normally I'm entirely comfortable listening to people whose opinions are different than mine. Well, like most people, I'm really not, but I try.

In this situation they've waited until a few days before the break to present their "plan". Somehow I don't think their legislation is real or sincere.

They could have presented their goals or ideas or legislation two weeks ago, or two months ago. They didn't. When asked, as Pres. Obama tried to get bi-partisan support, what their ideas were we heard nothing but vague utterances about controlling costs (to government, not individuals).

Now their plan arrives. Why now?

I suspect they want a fig leaf to take home during the break, so they can talk to the public about their sincere doubts and objections and concerns without appearing to be simple idiots and obstructionists or bought-and-paid-for corporate shills.

As they stand there with their hands out asking for who knows what the nation waits.

Our Dem leaders should NEVER EVER pay them off as that would only encourage them to do this again. It also would leave in question just how popular the legislation is with the public.

I believe these Blue Dogs will hear from the public over the break and that could make a difference.

If they continue to balk, then they, along with the recalcitrant obstructionist Republicans who demand 60 Senate votes for our "majority rule" government to proceed, will have destroyed us all.

They will have blown up the Obama agenda, the Democratic majority, simple majority rule, the political process of public debate of important issues and all that is (or was) good about our government and legislative processes. Of course, if that happens there will have to be retribution and that is a horrible thing too.

Let us pray.

Supported the Patriot Act? Check. Supported the war on Iraq? Check. Supported last year's FISA cover-up legislation? Check. Supported the evisceration of substantive health care reform?

Maybe, maybe not.

And on, and on.

I'm no spring chicken. My parents lives were saved by the New Deal. But I finally divorced myself- intellectually and emotionally- from the democratic party last year. It's strange, standing on the sidelines watching their evil machinations, and not feeling any sense of anger or outrage. Just disgust. The only hope that lingers is that the blue dogs (i.e. republicans within the party) will be somehow be crushed, and/or driven out; or that I will live to see the emergence of a third party. It's a drag, of course, but there it is.

I think we can take as a given that Harry Reid knows about the 51-vote option. They specifically put it in the bill proposal to get the other side all riled up, right?

The horrible suspician that is starting to bubble up in my mind is that Harry Reid and others are, deep down, as beholden to the same moneybags as Bayh and Baucus are. He might try to do the right thing but at the end of the day he may have to cave for the same reasons but with less overtness than the others.

I don't know, but I'm so starved for just some plain public-spirited honesty in government that it's getting hard to keep believing it's even possible these days.

Harry Reid - Now, where have I heard that name before? Please, no prompting. No Wiki. Hmmm, almost on the tip of my tongue. Wasn't he relevant at some point, or as Nixonians would say, point in time?

"Would now be a good time to mention that Reid is the leader of a 60-member caucus?"

I keep saying this, but "once more into the brach, dear friends" (I haven't seen YELLOW SUBMARINE in 20 years, but I still hear lines from it.)

We do NOT have 60 votes in the caucus -- even inckuding Lieberman. We have 58. There are no proxy votes in the Senate -- and, afaik, the courtesy of 'pairing' is no longer being used. Which means, unless Kennedy and Byrd are physically able to get to the floor and cast votes, their seats are, effectively, as empty as Franken's was before Coleman conceded.

We cannot get cloture without at least one Republican, even if Reid held the oldest child of every Democratic Senator hostage. Now i expect that Teddy's final vote will be for cloture -- but only once there is a finalized bill to vote on. In the meanwhile, will everybody remember that 60 votes only matter if every Senator is 'present and voting.'

Thank you for pointing that out, Prup aka Jim. That's an excellent point that I'd completely overlooked. What a total bummer, though.

thank you, prup, for making a basic point that so many posting here and elsewhere don't get: harry reid doesn't make the sun rise and the rains stop. he doesn't have that kind of power and his colleagues aren't going to give it to him. he works under the exigencies of the system as it exists at this moment, and the idea that if he were just tougher, suddenly, max baucus and evan bayh and mary landrieu and blanche lincoln and all the rest will suddenly wise up is just so much green lantern thinking.

no, if health care reform is going to get done, it will be obama who makes it happen.

now, that all said, what i don't think a good number of the democrats in congress understand is this: screw this up and your future as a party suddenly becomes much more questionable. failure to get it done now as a result of being a combination of spineless and in the pockets of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries is a good way to really harm the democratic party.

Howard, if he lacks that kind of power it's really proof that he isn't a leader. A Leader doesn't need formalized power, he has the power of influence. The power of ostracizing and inclusion.

Harry Reid is not a leader. A leader would find a way. Others have. Obama is not a leader either. We were hoodwinked into believe that he was, but he is not.

I was the IDIOT who REALLY thought the Dems were
Bushwacked during the past 8 years. I thought that given the Majority position, Health Care reform would occur.
If 72% of the public supports a REAL public option and these "Bought" politicians can not represent the "people" and PASS this option, NONE of them deserve our future votes.

Call your congressman, wake him up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqd0XiNvtI0

I say, Doctor, is there nothing I can take to remove this belly ache?

sp

Look no further than the failed Massachsetts Socilaized Healthcare Plan, and yet, Obama and liberals are yet trying to ram through an even worse social scheme onto the American people?

SINGLE PAYER IS BEST
PUBLIC OPTION IS SECOND CHOICE
ALL OTHERS ARE FAILURE

Harry Reid is a joke.

I think one of the reasons that the Prez's poll nos. are droping slightly is the Public is a bit disappointed with him. "The Public and Obama were going to get this Heathcare thing done"-"Yes We Can". Now, it appears that it's out of his and our hands and "reform" is in jeopardy. Perhaps, he made a decision to let "Congess do it" and made a big mistake. One he may regret. He may have misread Congress's willingness to respond to it's contituents but , rather, to the Lobbyists. It's the perfect example of who really runs this Country. We need to swamp our Reps and Senators with reminders of why they were elected.

I say cram it through with the 50 votes. Forget the GOP and the Blue Dogs and just cram it through and let the chips fall where they may.

There is no reform without the public option. We don't want a co-op. 72% of American's want a public option and our voices will be heard at the polls if we loose to the insurance companies and special interest.

"Howard Dean (appearing in front of a very familiar backdrop) rhetorically asked Rachel Maddow last night, "[W]hat's the point of having a 60 vote majority in the United States Senate, if you can't produce ... health care reform?"

You can always go back to being in the minority, that's always fun, right?

According to polls, leftists aren't even a majority in the Democratic Party. Who are you guys kidding?

There's a lot to admire about Harry Reid; for instance, the way he manages to sit and stand erect with a spine made of oatmeal and cocktail shrimps. What a pushover.

Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me it would be better to craft a solid, honest reform bill with no hidden quicksand, put it to a vote and have it fail due to Republican obstructionism than to continually chip away at it until it gives the Republicans most or all they want before they'll let it pass. Surely if a good bill was seen to fail due to Republican obstruction, the Republicans would pay dearly? What's the sense of refashioning a reform bill until it mandates the status quo?

Similarly, what good does it do to keep giving the Republicans a chance to wreck everything? Given such an opportunity, they'll choose destruction every time.