Going Forward

Sam Stein goes over the Obamacare options from here:

The first is to convince the senator to support Democrats in breaking a Republican filibuster before casting a vote against the bill. This would allow for the legislation to pass with Lieberman still registering his opposition. Lieberman, however, has said he considers the procedural vote to cut off debate to be of the same significance as a vote on the bill itself.

The second path is to try and pick up a Republican moderate. But this too seems unlikely, as Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), Reid's best bet, has also expressed opposition to the Medicare buy-in provision.

The third path would be to appease Lieberman and wipe the provisions that he deems controversial from the bill. This, however, would likely lose Reid several progressive votes -- advancing the cause no further.

The final path would be to try reconciliation, the parliamentary procedure that would allow Democrats to pass chunks of health care reform by a simple up or down vote. There are a host of hurdles that come with going down this route, including questions over what, exactly, could be passed. And both the White House and Reid's office seem hesitant to use the procedural tool, even after Lieberman's latest round of opposition.

"It is not on the table at this point," the source said. "We are still trying to go through regular order."

Options one and two are not happening, and anyone who thinks they are, allow me to sell you some oceanfront property in Montana (previously owned by Max Baucus.) We're long past this nonsense now.

That takes us to option three, stripping out the public option to appease Lieberman.  The bill will then be blocked by Roland Burris and Bernie Sanders at the minimum on the left, and probably Russ Feingold as well.  No dice there.

That leaves by default option four, reconciliation, which is "off the table" at this point.

That leaves....nothing.  I'm not seeing the way out of this mess.  Yes, this leaves us right back where we were six months ago:  no public option other than reconciliation, which the Republicans will try to sunset in five years.

As I said earlier today, now's the time for Obama to step in and break some heads.  He does understand that his Presidency is at stake here, yes?  It's up to him at this point.  What will Obama do?  What can he do?  I'm not sure at this point there's anything he can do.  But one thing's clear:  Joe F'ckin Lieberman sure as hell doesn't think there's anything Obama can or will do at this point.

And doing nothing at this point will cost the Dems dearly in 2010.