Truly progressive legislation rarely gets voted down. Truly progressive legislation rarely gets voted on at all. We are told that we don't have the votes, so we may as well not try. We are told that watered down capitulations are the best that was possible, so no pressure is exerted to get something better. But when it comes to the end game, plenty of pressure is exerted to get those watered down capitulations. One wonders what would have happened if such pressure had been exerted, in the first place, to get something better. One is left to wonder, because no such pressure ever is exerted.

It's not complicated. We know the process. It happened with the top-down stimulus that isn't trickling very well, and it happened with the transmogrification of health care reform into a health insurance industry bailout, with just enough goodies thrown in to make it worth passing, on the margins. Of course there's no good reason we couldn't have gotten more community health clinics without the accompanying health insurance industry bailout. It's for others to figure out the wherefores and whys. I'm not that smart.

We know how it works. We know how it will work, going forward. The best ideas won't even be considered. The centrists will be put in charge, with the excuse that we need their votes. Then, in the end, if they still won't support legislation that supposedly was crafted to appease them, we'll figure out how to get the votes, anyway. Not for truly progressive legislation, but for corporate-friendly legislation that supposedly was crafted with the centrists in mind. Here's a clue: it's not the centrists that are undermining progress. Hitchcock fans know a McGuffin when they see one.

So, as we move forward to new and wondrous sources of argument, browbeating, tearing of hair and rending of garments, I propose an easier and quicker way. Just let Baucus and Lieberman and Nelson and Collins and Snowe craft legislation. They still likely won't vote for most of it, but at least they can be used as sources of blame. And that's what it's all about. Blame. Because that buck never stops, anywhere, anymore.