Clarifying Partisanship

by digby

Here’s Mike Enzi basically telling the Democratic members of the Gang of Six that he’s acting in bad faith:

Mike Enzi, one of three Republicans ostensibly negotiating health care reform as part of the Senate’s “Gang of Six,” told a Wyoming town hall crowd that he had no plans to compromise with Democrats and was merely trying to extract concessions.

“It’s not where I get them to compromise, it’s what I get them to leave out,” Enzi said Monday, according to the Billings Gazette.

As I wrote yesterday, these guys are basically forcing Conrad, Baucus and Bingaman into a corner. If the GOP won’t give them any bipartisan cover, they are out there all alone. It’s quite the game of chicken at this point.

This health care debate is looking like it’s finally going to tell us what our president really believes in. (We know where he is on national security, but then nearly all presidents of both parties are hawks so it doesn’t really tell you anything. Domestic policy is where the rubber meets the road.) The Republicans have completely taken themselves out of the debate and the only arguments are among Democrats. And that means President Obama’s going to have to decide which side he’s going to put his weight behind. It’s hard to believe he’ll come down on the side of the liberals after all the effort he’s put into placating the medical industry, but it’s always possible.

One thing’s becoming completely clear — he won’t be able to do anything with bipartisan cover and that means it’s all coming down to his partisan leadership. Which way will he go?

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