Bart Stupid-pak

Digby points out that Rep. Bart Stupak was played from the beginning by the Catholic Bishops in order to be the instrument of the death of Obamacare.

Nick Baumann at Mother Jones takes a look at the top lobbyist for the Catholic Bishops (they have lobbyists?) who advised Stupak on his bizarre quest to hold out for the Stupak Amendment over the Nelson Amendment for no apparent reason. It's a fascinating story.

And now it seems there is serious trouble in paradise:

Perhaps the biggest question hanging over the bishops' strategy is why they were prepared to see health care reform fail unless the Stupak amendment's abortion provisions were adopted. After all, there was virtually no difference between the Stupak amendment in the House bill—which Doerflinger insisted was the only acceptable option—and the Nelson language in the Senate bill, which the bishops warned would "require people to pay for other people’s abortions."

[...]

In the days since Stupak voted for the bill, relations between his bloc and the bishops have soured. "The church does have some work to do in dealing with frayed nerves and divisions on policy questions," Doerflinger told Catholic News Service. Last week, Stupak attacked the bishops and other anti-abortion groups for "great hypocrisy" in opposing Obama's executive order after having supported former President George W. Bush's executive order banning stem cell research in 2007. He told the Daily Caller he believed the bishops and the groups they were allied with were "just using the life issue to try to bring down health-care reform." In other words, he suspected he was wrong to trust that his former allies were acting in good faith.

Yah think?

Yes, it was difficult to understand why Catholic bishops who purport to care for the poor would do such a thing. Certainly the non-wingnut laity wondered. In fact, they were aghast. So were the nuns. So were the Catholic hospitals. Stupak and his bloc were apparently just fools.

The problem was, Stupak was far from being the only one, but he was the one who was going to take the fall.  The fact that in the end Stupak realized he was going to go down as the most hated goat in Democratic party history was the only thing that saved Obamacare from this particular method of execution.

Stupak honestly thought he was going to be a hero.  Lord, what fools the useful idiots be.