Collective Conscious

That’s what’s left in the Senate.

Looks like Lieber­man is a yes on the new idea.

Snowe is a no on the Medicare exten­sion, which seems like it might have been a rather good way to rope in an “anti-​​government pub­lic option” con­ser­v­a­tive like her. How — with­out admit­ting to be a standard-​​issue obstruc­tion­ista — can she go against the bill at this point, after vot­ing it out of com­mit­tee and finally nego­ti­at­ing away any threat of actual gov­ern­ment health­care management?

And Ben Nel­son is up in the air over abortion.

No mat­ter what gets worked out in the end, con­fer­ence and its pas­sage is going to be a night­mare for every­one — pro­gres­sives in the House are unhappy with the Senate’s right­ward com­pro­mises, and the Sen­ate would be unlikely to stand for any post-​​passage lib­er­al­iza­tion of the bill.