the stupak amendment

House Republicans were placed in an interesting position on Saturday evening.  They helped pass the amendment most instrumental in unifying Democrats behind Nancy Pelosi's healthcare bill.

As I watched the debate on what must have been CSPAN's biggest night ever, I also followed it on Twitter.  Michelle Malkin and some others were urging the GOP to vote against the amendment prohibiting government-funded abortion.  Since the entire point of the amendment was to buy blue-dog votes, it would appear that defeating the amendment would leave a poison pill in the bill.

Of course, there was always the possibility that liberal Democrats would reject the bill if it encroached on abortion, a situation I viewed as a strong possibility in my own Saturday post.

But in hindsight, leadership's goal was to get the bill passed, and I don't think they would have muddied the water by allowing the amendment if they didn't think it would net more votes than it would cost them.

I don't know that I should be able to foresee these outcomes, but I do think GOP congressmen should have been able to see it.

There's a lot of fight left against this bill -- even the AP is calling it DOA in the Senate this morning.  It'll have to get past at least three filibusters in the Senate, and depending on what comes out of the conference, it may gain some new poison pills for the House as well.  Right now, it can't pass the Senate with a public option, and that's really the only thing liberal Democrats have come here to do.  According to them, the conference report won't pass the House without a public option.

So this is only the first game in a World Series.  But I can't help but wonder whether the bill was actually destined to pass the House on Saturday night, or if our team was simply outplayed.