I’m having a very difficult time understanding how Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY) can be considered a potential partner in a bipartisan health care bill. According to Progressive Punch, he is the sixth most conservative member of the Senate. The only senators with worse records? Barrasso, Bunning, Cornyn, Inhofe, and DeMint. Because Sen. Enzi doesn’t do much television, I don’t think most people know who he is. But he is basically a slightly more jovial version of Dick Cheney. Because he is the ranking member and former chair of the HELP Committee, he has done some bipartisan work on health care with Teddy Kennedy. But the idea that Enzi, of all people, is going to break with the conservative movement and vote to end a filibuster on health care is ludicrous. So, can we stop pretending?
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BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
This goes back to the bad faith question. Is Baucus really trying to get something done, or is he just stalling?
I am a bit surprised there hasn”t been a single leak (AFAIK) out of those negotiations. Reporters should have been able to find at least one slightly disgruntled lower-level staffer to give them a hint about what is happening. Then again, our media sucks, so…
I’m with Rockefeller. I’m fed up with Baucus.
But doesn’t it make perfect sense that Enzi would be held up as a bipartisan partner if the intent of this “bipartisanship” that we are seeing is to come up with a bill that pleases the health care and pharmaceutical interests and their lobbyists and keeps the money flowing into the coffers of the “bipartisanship” gang?
The only place that it doesn’t make any sense to consider Enzi a partner is among those who actually want to deliver an effective bill that actually helps people obtain affordable and effective health care and doesn’t just line the pockets of the health care industry and their lackeys in Washington.
I’m bored by the whole charade. It either passed in two-piece reconciliation process, or it passes as insurance reform bill, and health care has to wait.
should read ‘passes’.
Not only is he a faithless and useless partner, he is already threatening Democratic representatives; he “said Democrats are in for “some nasty, nasty town meetings,” implying that the public disruptions are a symptom of liberal over reach, not of conservative rabble rousing.”
Wonder if he is in on the planning of these disruptions?