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Ben Nelson's Treachery

By W. James Antle, III on 12.19.09 @ 3:25PM

Never has a Blue Dog barked so loudly only to roll over so pathetically, and that is saying something given the sorry history of the Blue Dogs. No senator who votes for cloture at this stage should be given a pass, even if they ultimately end up voting against the final bill. This is the health care vote that matters. The Ben Nelson test has come and he seems intent on failing, like the rest of the pro-life Democrats in the Senate. The compromises the Democratic moderates have won have only served to turn the bill into an incoherent mess, preserving the private health insurance industry while negating major reasons for its existence. If it passes, opponents should move on toward working for its repeal.

View all comments (9) | Leave a comment

Shamus| 12.19.09 @ 4:08PM

The GOP is almost as bad as the Democrats. Sure, the Democrats are doing the heavy lifting when it comes to destroying the economy, but the GOP are enabling these efforts.

If the Republicans truly cared about defeating the health care bill there are many things they could do to slow down passage in the Senate.

So far they've done nothing.

I think Republicans have made a cynical political calculation they will benefit more from passage of a fatally flawed health bill than they will from fighting it. The public will pay much more in premiums and taxes, and will get much worse health outcomes, but the GOP will garner votes through their suffering.

Paul| 12.19.09 @ 7:16PM

Dear Mr. Antle,

With all due respect to you, Ben Nelson never looked liked an Abraham Lincoln and the likelihood of any of the potential Democratic holdouts standing firm was always less than 1%. There are no surprises here. It was always a question of price.

Spicy Joker| 12.21.09 @ 12:52AM

I agree. If Benedict Nelson were a true conservative, he wouldn't be in the same party as Nancy Pelosi.

BD57| 12.19.09 @ 7:29PM

Shamus, I think the GOP Senators came to the conclusion that ultimately they'd be unable to stop the bill - there are 60 Democrats, after all - and chose to leave the focus on the Democrats. They certainly wouldn't get any favorable media coverage from an aggressive, but still losing, effort to block passage.

That probably sounds like I'm agreeing with you - the only difference, IMO, is the word "cynical" ... it's only cynical if the Senate GOP believed they could stop it but chose not to because they believe THEY will benefit politically.

Becky| 12.19.09 @ 8:52PM

Like in real life, there isn't any such thing as a blue dog. They seem to be more like yellow chickens to me.

Yosemeti Sam| 12.20.09 @ 1:27AM

Gold leafed with Medicare assaulting health 'short change' for the elderly, the hollow golden calf Dingy and his liberal/progressive/leftist
pickpockets
have crafted behind closed doors for their idol in the White House - will not so much as afford any of them a fig leaf of Constitutional backbone honor nor decency.

For their Machiavellianism performances.

Oldefarte| 12.20.09 @ 11:17AM

Whether they be Blue Dogs, Yellow Dogs, RINO's or whatever, they are nothing but POLITICAL PROSTITUTES; and the Amercian voters would be wise to vote all of them out of office beginning in 2010!!!!!

JP| 12.20.09 @ 12:12PM

Shamus,
The GOP seems to get blames no matter what. With only 40 Senators there are/were powerless to offer nothing more than procedural road blocks that could be shot down with a simple Committe vote. Reid and Baucus, like Pelosi, shut out and shut down and participation the GOP offered. There was not one amendment various GOP senators offered up that made it out of committee. This is the price a party pays for being defeated. If there was a crime these last 8 years it was the crime of negligence, political corruption, and hubris. Here is a list of GOP Senators that were the "Moderates". They set and assisted Bush in much of his domestic agenda:

Senator Dole
Senator Gordon
Senator Chaffee (jr)
Senator Coleman
Senator Warner
Senator Stevens

And of course Snarlin Arlene jumped ship. The GOP leadership along with President Bush governed meekly, and were more than willing to grow the size of the federal government. The GOP "moderate" leadership ensured that there would be no accountability in growing problems with the real estate bubble and how it was financed and engineered. They deserved to get trounced.

And now we shall all suffer because of it. At least one thing will come about Senator Nelson's acceptence of this 30 peices of silver: we can now dispense with the idea and category of House and Senate Blue Dog Democrats. If they are anything, they have proven to be cheap whores. Like thier Moderate GOP counterparts, they've proven to have no principles other than thier own selfish interests.

One wonders if Lindsay Gramm, Richard Lugar, Saxby Champbliss, Olympia Snowe, and Lamar Alexander really understand the political time bomb that is set to go off.