10/14: Snowed

Liberal bloggers aren't too happy that Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) joined the Dems on the Finance Committee in voting for Chairman Max Baucus's (D-MT) health care bill, since they believe that Snowe's vote will give her considerable sway over what the merged Senate bill looks like. BooMan explains: "It could be argued that her support for the Finance version of this bill will give it a leg-up on [Sen. Chris] Dodd's HELP version. That would be unfortunate." Indeed, lefty bloggers are urging Senate Maj. Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) to "put a public option in the combined Senate bill that is brought to the floor," even if it causes Snowe to withdraw her support from the bill.

Meanwhile, lefty bloggers are blasting Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) for announcing his opposition to the Finance Committee bill on Don Imus's radio show. They netroots are urging Reid to strip Lieberman of his chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee if he joins a GOP filibuster of the bill. In fact, some lefty bloggers are warning Reid that he'll deserve the blame if Lieberman or any other Dem doesn't vote for cloture.

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Conservative bloggers are giving the redesigned GOP website (which was down for several hours yesterday) a range of reviews, from negative to so-so to positive. However, several righty bloggers (Bandes, Allahpundit) are mocking GOP Chairman Michael Steele for calling his blog "What Up?" (he later re-named his blog "Change The Game").
• Liberal bloggers (Lewison, digby, Singer, Black, Benen, Llorens) are blasting the NRCC for promoting a web video of Adolf Hitler praising Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
• Liberal bloggers (publius, Benen, Cole, Coates) continue to condemn TX Gov. Rick Perry (R) for allegedly approving the execution of an innocent man and subsequently trying to cover it up.
• Conservative bloggers (Erickson, Hinderaker, Allahpundit) are excited about the new anti-Obama organization, "Keep America Safe", which was founded by Liz Cheney, William Kristol, and Debra Burlingame.

SNOWE: Nothing To Celebrate

Liberal bloggers aren't happy that Snowe voted for the Finance Committee bill:

• BooMan: "I'm not sure it is a good thing overall that Snowe supported the bill. It could be argued that her support for the Finance version of this bill will give it a leg-up on Dodd's HELP version. That would be unfortunate."
• Firedoglake's Jon Walker: "Obama has signaled his desperation to win the support of Snowe, and seems willing to accept any idea she has regardless how bad. Snowe's vote may make it easier for the Democratic leadership to declare a political victory, but the cost of winning Snowe's support could be that health care reform is a policy failure. In which case, it is the American people who are the real losers."
• Daily Kos' mcjoan: "Don't celebrate the Snowe vote. [...] By voting yes, Snowe remains relevant -- the Baucus bill passes with that shiny 'bipartisan' sheen that seems still to matter to in Washington. But don't forget that she has her finger on the 'trigger' -- her trigger that would kill the public option. As BTD says, she's kept the Baucus bill alive, and through it the best chance of a making what now seems inevitable -- reform of some kind -- as watered down as possible. The majority does have the votes to pass this without her, and she's basically threatening them to do just that, calculating that keeping her name attached to reform will be the goal for the negotiators. Those negotiators should actually take her up on that threat, and craft a bill that could pass without her. Their larger hurdle remains the House Progressive Block, which isn't backing down from it's insistence on real reform."
• TalkLeft's Big Tent Democrat: "Snowe saw that BaucusCare was fast becoming irrelevant and would have been completely irrelevant without her vote. She did not want to offer her trigger amendment now because she is saving that 'concession' for the endgame. And she wants the final bargaining to begin with BaucusCare. She did what she had to do today to make BaucusCare the blueprint. Senators [Nelson] Rockefeller and [Ron] Wyden (or [Chuck] Schumer) misplayed their hands today by announcing they will vote Yes for BaucusCare. If two of them had voted No (Wyden does not really care about the public option and Schumer is in the leadership so I think I give them a bit of a pass on the political bargaining question), then BaucusCare would have been seen as a nonstarter from the Progressive side. This is important not only in the Senate but in the House, where the Progressive Block needs all the help it can get. Snowe's shrewd play need not be a big deal in the endgame, but it could very likely be one. It all depends on how progressives in the Senate play it. So far, not good."

Not every liberal blogger was disappointed by Snowe's vote, however. Before the vote took place, The Washington Post's Ezra Klein argued that "liberals should hope for an 'aye' from Snowe": "If [Snowe] abandons the bill, that empowers [NE Sen.] Ben Nelson as the eventual dealmaker, much as he was during stimulus. He's already announced that he won't vote for the legislation without some bipartisan support, and if he's the guy left to secure that support, he may well do exactly what he did during the stimulus debate: create a voting bloc out of a couple conservative Democrats and Snowe and [ME Sen. Susan] Collins that will delay cloture until they secure a package of idiosyncratic and damaging concessions that infuriate liberals. But this isn't the stimulus. A move like that could blow up whatever delicate compromise emerges from the HELP/Finance blender, and throw the negotiations into a late and unnecessary chaos. On health-care reform, it's a lot more dangerous to leave the power with the most conservative Democrat than the most liberal Republican."

On the other side of the blogosphere, conservative bloggers (Morrissey, Mirengoff, Chesser) criticized Snowe's vote. RedState Editor Erick Erickson urged his readers to "melt Snowe" by sending bags of rock salt to her office -- a suggestion that drew mockery from liberal bloggers.

LIEBERMAN: Pay Attention To Meeeeeeee!

Liberal bloggers are furious that Lieberman announced that he doesn't support the Finance Committee bill:

• The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen: "Lieberman, who has been trashing the reform effort for months, told Don Imus today he opposes the Baucus bill, and again argued that he doesn't even like the idea of working on health care reform. [...] This is just so absurd. Health care reform, if it passes, will take years to be implemented. There's no reason for a recession to interfere with fixing a broken system, but even if that were a driving factor, this recession will end before 2013. Lieberman must know this, which means he's looking for excuses, even cheap ones, to oppose reform."
• Daily Kos' Markos Moulitsas: "Yo Barack and Harry, what was it with Lieberman being 'with us on everything but the war'?"

Liberal bloggers are urging Reid to strip Lieberman of his chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee if he joins the GOP in filibustering the health care bill:

• Open Left's Adam Green: "Now, it's time for Leader Reid to lead -- and to tell Lieberman that keeping his committee chairmanship while helping Republicans block a vote on health care reform is 'unacceptable.' Help urge Reid to take that step today."
• BooMan: "If [Lieberman] threatens to join a filibuster of the president's health care plan, then there was no point in keeping him around. He should be out on his own petard."
• digby: "Now we know why they are courting Snowe like she's the second coming. This asshole is clearly going to show the Democrats who they messed with and vote with the Republicans every step of the way. He's off the team entirely. It's long past time to strip him of his chairmanship and lock him out of all strategy meetings. If he gets mad, who gives a shit? It's impossible to believe that there's any benefit to having him vote with caucus anymore. 60 doesn't mean 60, that's for sure."

Firedoglake's Jane Hamsher warns Reid that he'll deserve the blame if Lieberman or any other Dem filibusters the health care bill: "Either Harry Reid enforces caucus discipline on this one or it becomes the model for every single piece of legislation that comes before the Senate from hereon in. It guarantees that every piece of Democratic legislation is written by the caucus’s most conservative members. [...] If the Senate combined bill does not include the HELP committee public option, without triggers, opt-outs, co-ops or anything else that makes an already weak proposal weaker, I pledge to do everything in my power to defeat Harry Reid -- and his son -- in 2010. If the Senate combined bill allows a filibuster from members of the Democratic caucus and Reid doesn't strip them of their committee chairmanships, I pledge to do everything in my power to defeat Harry Reid -- and his son -- in 2010."

Klein doesn't think Lieberman would really filibuster the health care bill: "I could be proven wrong on this, but I'm not that worried about Lieberman. His name hasn't come up in any of the conversations I've had with Senate staffers about wavering members. And Democrats actually have a lot of leverage over Lieberman. They're in the majority, and likely to stay that way. He's chairman of a committee that he wants to keep, and that he needs Democratic votes to retain. Nor does he have enough friends left in the Senate to protect himself from reprisals if he defects on such a high-profile vote. In fact, plenty of Democrats would be all too glad to strip him of his power and prove that there are consequences for crossing the party. That would make his remaining years in office pretty miserable."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Petraeus For President?

Hot Air's Allahpundit responds to Peter Beinart's suggestion that the GOP nominate Gen. David Petraeus as their '12 WH candidate:

"We've been over this before. He gave a Sherman statement to Chris Wallace back in 2007. Even if he was inclined to renege, it's hard to believe he'd do it to challenge his own commander-in-chief in 2012. If it's going to happen, it'll happen in 2016, and that'll require another crushing GOP defeat against The One.

That said, Beinart's larger point is well taken. Among the major Republican candidates, the only one who truly excites the base is [AK Gov. Sarah] Palin, yet she's sufficiently poisonous to moderates at the moment that [ex-VA AG] Bob McDonnell won't even take her up on her offer to campaign for him in Virginia while sitting on a nine-point lead. Petraeus is the only person on the landscape, it seems, capable of intriguing the base and centrists. His problem is that, for the foreseeable future, the country's problems don't play to his strengths. Ike [Eisenhower] was an easy choice for post-war America because he epitomized strength and victory at a moment when the red menace was top priority; our own top priority for most of the next decade, I imagine, will be unemployment and debt unless Iran or North Korea does something astoundingly nutty. Why look to a general to deal with that? Like Beinart says, a serious look at Petraeus would require another Republican flameout in 2012, driving the party to such desperation that they'll practically be forced to look outside the box. He'll only be 64 in 2016. Why not?"

LEST WE FORGET: Sotomayor Misses Supreme Court Case After Failing To Get Out Of Jury Duty

From The Onion:

"WASHINGTON -- Recently appointed justice Sonia Sotomayor told reporters that, despite making dozens of excuses, she was selected for jury duty this week, causing her to miss a landmark Supreme Court case addressing campaign finance reform.

'I probably threw away four of those letters before I got one that said I had to appear or "face serious penalties," whatever that means,' said Sotomayor, who was forced to appear at a nearby municipal courthouse Monday. 'I just got a new job, for Christ's sake. I can't afford to be sitting in some dingy courtroom all day. God, what a waste of time.'

'The guy is totally guilty, by the way,' Sotomayor continued. 'You can tell just by looking at him.'"