Original Intent

I mean, really:

The founding fathers said nothing about the filibuster or about Senate super-majorities. [...]

Elections matter, and if the Republicans manage to elect a president and 54 or 57 senators, they'd have won the right to enact their agenda. Whether I agreed with it is irrelevant. As I've written many times, the problem may be healthcare in the immediate instance, but the larger problem is that the system has broken down.

The problem isn't Lieberman insomuch as it's the rules that Lieberman's been able to take advantage of. The 60 vote threshold means not only are we giving a wildly disproportionate amount of governing power to state's with an inordinate number of Lion's Den truck stops, but the indifference to reasonable representative democracy has created an opening for starlets like Joey Lieberman to step up and get their picture in the paper.

For all those exulting Lieberfreude and hoping to expel the little trollop from the caucus, well, it's never as easy as it seems. Is it?

The administration has been open about his role in the climate bill as Lieberman, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) are huddling five times a week on the legislation that will ultimately hit the Senate floor.

A Congressional source described Lieberman as "incredibly engaged" on the issue, and said his position is even arguably "progressive."

That doesn't mean we're not going to be served up another Lieberman special when cap and trade hits the senate floor. But the sad upshot to all this is that Lieberman remains a necessary egomaniac, unreliant on DCCC dollars to get re-elected. Here's the silver-lining:

Disappointed progressives may be wondering whether their efforts were a waste. They most decidedly were not. The campaign for the public option pushed the entire debate to the left -- and, to use a military metaphor, it diverted enemy fire away from the rest of the bill. If Lieberman and his allies didn't have the public option to attack, they would have tried to gut the subsidies, the exchanges, or some other key element. They would have hacked away at the bill, until it left more people uninsured and more people under-insured. The public option is the reason that didn't happen.

I'm amazed that giving money to poor people didn't draw more fire. Along with insurance reform, that's the win.

-- Update --

Looks like there's some on the left trying hard to be relevant:

The bloggers who are focused on political organizing and pulling Dems to the left mostly seem to want to kill the bill, while the wonkier types want to salvage it because they think it contains real reform and can act as a foundation for further achievements.

In the former camp are bloggers like Markos Moulitsas, former House candidate Darcy Burner, and the Firedoglake crew. They mostly deride the bill as a giveaway to the insurance companies that does nothing for consumers. A quick rundown of their opinions right here.

I'll stick with the wonks.