Is there anything Grassley can do to make Baucus realize he can't be negotiated with?

Now, THAT'S leadership! Sheesh!

Lucy Grassley is going to pull the football away at the last minute. I'm so shocked.

He'd vote for a war against France or Canada if McConnell told him to.

So, Baucus won't support a bill that Grassley won't support, and Grassley won't support a bill that Inhofe and the like won't support. We have a 60-40 vote majority in the Senate, and we're having terms dictated to us by the most reactionary idiots in the Senate, none of whom want to see anything pass at all unless it does more harm than good. How the heck do the Dems manage to screw things like this up?

Is this really happening?

The Dems want to know why their base isn't fighting for this? Well maybe they need to lead and actually start fighting themselves. How can anyone possibly believe Grassley is negotiating in good faith? Do they think we're idiots?

Welcome to Circus Baucus

And now for a moment of schadenfreude

The full consequences of a particular event are seldom clear at the outset. And that makes me think of the original reaction to former Sen. Tom Daschle's decision to withdraw his nomination for HHS Secretary over his tax controversy earlier this year.

They were clear to me as my spamming posts and rants against the Purity Of Essence crowd at the time will confirm

I promise..you don't have to look it up

As a followup, "If you have--if it's something you believe...if you think this is a good deal, and overall because of the politics of the situation you can't get more Republicans on board, you're going to go ahead and vote against it."

Honestly, does any of the above make nay sense?

I think this is gets to the root of many Democrats' problem with how Obama and Baucus are approaching negotiations in the Senate Finance Committee (SFC). I think many have understood for quite some time that this is exactly what would happen: The SFC would hammer out a "compromise," the rest of the Republican caucus would not support it (most are vehemently opposed to any type of health care reform), and the Democrats would be left voting on a severely watered-down bill. (If the process sounds familiar, see American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.)

It's not worth sacrificing good policy for what is, at best, a lukewarm intimation that Republicans MAY vote for the final bill. Note: No Senate Republicans have declared support for reform. And, to my knowledge, only Rep. Cao (R-LA) has voiced potential support in the House. [He also voiced potential support on the stimulus before being whipped into voting against it with every other House Republican.]

LIsten, Republicans are NOT going to vote for a Democratic bill, at least not in the Senate. [You may get some Republican votes in the House.] From every indication we've been given, Republicans are thinking about health care in purely political terms. They view the prospect of Democratic health care reform as a threat to their long-term political prospect, and any potential compromise with them is further compounded by their base's hate of anything Democratic.

Bipartisanship is a wonderful notion. In an ideal world, Republicans and Democrats would come together to pass the reform that's so crucial to short-term and long-term well-being of this nation. But, as current events demonstrate, we don't live in an ideal world. As such, let's make the most of what's before us.

Democrats should simply do the right thing in terms of policy, and let the political cards fall where they may. Ultimately, the American people will have more respect for that approach.

And this is the man Obama holds up as an example of bipartisin GOP support. Grassley and the rest of the GOP must have belly aches from laughing so hard at Obama and his teams naive belief that the GOP will help them.

So the question is will this finally convince Obama that these GOP "friends" of his have no intention of supporting any reform and that they have been making a bipartisin chump out of him all along?