Christmas Miracle?

by digby

The White House denies that Emmanuel told Reid to capitulate to Lieberman. But all the fatuous gasbags are saying they’ve “heard” that the White House doesn’t give a damn about the Medicare buy-in and that basically — they want Reid to capitulate to Lieberman. Whether they “heard” this the same place we did is unknown.(Update: Ryan Grim reports that his sources say it’s true.)

But Gloria Borger also reported on CNN that Emmanuel also talked to Reid about using reconciliation. This leads me to believe that Rahm is floating trial balloons to see what the reaction on the hill and in the press will be to the two paths to a vote: a Lieberman bill or reconciliation. In my view, both of those are unlikely.

Since a Lieberman bill is unlikely to stop at the gutting of the Public Option, Medicare buy-in and the CLASS Act (he will in all likelihood insist on cuts to the subsidies and Medicaid expansion as well) it’s finally possible for me to see a bunch of Democrats voting against health care reform. After all, it would no longer be a Democratic bill and it’s no longer an Obama bill. They will be asked to vote for a Lieberman Republican bill and that isn’t so difficult. And since no Republicans will vote even for a Lieberman bill, the bill dies. That leaves reconciliation which I’m sorry to say probably requires more guts than the Democrats and the White House have.

I can’t see the way out barring a Christmas miracle. Does George Voinovich believe in ghosts by any chance?

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