Well that was quick. Yesterday, I wrote that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid should try to kill Max Baucus' bill, despite the bills bipartisan support. I think he may have torpedoed it before I even hit publish. And so went the day that Reid, "cut a wide swath through the Senate."

From Politico:

"Grassley and three to four Republicans would have voted for it, but all the other Republicans would have beaten the living s—t out of us [during the 2010 midterms], claiming the bill was too bloated," said a Democrat who supported Reid's decision, explaining the leader's logic."

As the story says, the Majority Leader replaced the bill with a much smaller and narrower $15 billion version. There is some question as to whether the bill is too small, which is funny considering that Republicans have been bashing Democrats for about nine months now for wanting to pass big bills. How can you not love politics?

And if you ever wonder why people look down on voters, it might be because they believe this stuff.

Some links:

• You may have heard that Bill Clinton was in the hospital yesterday. He apparently will be released today and is alright after having two stents placed in one of his coronary arteries.
• Interesting look at Obama's politics and whether he really does want to be a "great one-term president." I also noticed this exchange and remembered it:
  

  "If the price of certainty is essentially for us to adopt the exact same proposals that were in place leading up to the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression . . . the result is going to be the same. I don't know why we would expect a different outcome pursuing the exact same policy that got us in this fix in the first place." He continued: "If our response ends up being, you know . . . we don't want to stir things up here," then "I don't know why people would say, 'Boy, we really want to make sure those Democrats are in Washington fighting for us.'"

• Uh, thing is, very few of you out there think DC is doing anything good right now. Thank goodness I don't have an approval poll. Just living here would bring it down.
• For those of you who just say, "a Kennedy could fix everything," well, for the first time in half a century, there will not be one in Congress.

So I wasn't going to blog tonight, but I had to tell someone this.

Here I am, about 10:30 at night and I am watching the Senate Finance Committee hearing on Sen. Baucus' healthcare bill. About 10 minutes ago John Cornyn (R-TX) introduced an amendment to force all members of Congress to enroll in the Medicaid program in their home states.

His reasoning: "the program is broken. If we all had to enroll in it, I guarantee it would get fixed."

Baucus responded by saying: "It's getting to be on 10:30 now. Getting a little late. Does anyone have any debate, any comment?"

Unnamed speaker: "Mr. Chairman, I feel that we do our worst work when it gets to be this late."

Baucus: "That was my point."

A subsequent roll call vote obviously failed.

The point here is that if you think Congressmen are grownups, you are way wrong. This amendment won't help Cornyn back in Texas. He is safe anyway. He was just being annoying.

Let me add a couple of links:

Just a quick thing from the New Jersey governors race. If you look more into it, you'll find that one of the negative ads very subtly attacks his weight.

You wonder if one day 50 years from now, people will be saying that a president should channel is inner Barack Obama.

In Washington, this is called the "revolving door" between the Capitol and K Street. Full disclosure: my office is considered a K Street office.

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was hospitalized today. It is widely speculated that she will be the next justice to retire.

You Seattle people will know all about a city under siege from protest.

Shocker, they are protesting at Berkeley. Never heard that before.

Warning: gruesome. Disgusting way a U.S. census bureau field worker died (suicide has not be ruled out) in Kentucky.

Hate to end it like that, but it's hard to even change the subject. Go watch the end of the USC-Ole Miss game. Could be good.

Night.