You know, from a party full of politician leaders who are incessantly disingenuous and oftentimes just downright dishonest (not that they aren't just as many slimeballs in the repub party), I asked myself this question today: "Self, why do you typically distrust everything that this democrat party has to say, but yet you take it at face value when it comes to their threats, such as the nuclear option/reconciliation"? And the more I read and hear on the issue, I'm thinking reconciliation (i.e. the threat of ramming a massive health care bill through the Senate with only 51 votes) may well be little more than an idle threat.I know, I know -- I've previously thought these radical-leftist-progressive-controlled dems would do anything necessary to ram through a huge health care bill, but I'm starting to think that the completely drastic measure of reconciliation is a "Bridge Too Far" that even the dems do not intend to try to cross. I think they may well be bluffing, with an aim towards bringing onboard a moderate republican or two (such that reconciliation would not be necessary) with minimal concessions to said moderate republican(s) in terms of the language of the bill.
I'm starting to think this for at least a couple of reasons: (1) Trying to ram this huge monstrosity through using reconciliation would be, based upon what I have read, a huge procedural nightmare based upon all the procedural roadblocks that repubs would be able to throw up; and (2) If Obama & The Dems have the unmitigated audacity to use such an obscure procedural mechanism (typically only used for budget-related matters) to ram through the most wide-sweeping legislation in 45 years against the clear will of The People (who overwelmingly oppose this legislation), it will be a disaster for the democrat party this fall of nearly Biblical proportions.
So my current money is on "BLUFF". That would also explain the leaks 4-6 weeks ago to the likes of Dick Morris (why would ANY DEM ever leak anything to him?) that reconciliation had been agreed upon by Obama/Pelosi/Reid as an option: Such leaks were probably calculated to have the reconciliation idea/threat out there for a number of weeks in order to give the Bluff more credibility down the road. Could I be completely off-base here? Absolutely. I'm just trying to guess the probabilities.
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2010/02/23/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry6235624.shtml
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