According to Salon.com's Alex Koppelman, Friday's news reports that Kent Conrad definitively stated he would vote against a public option aren't accurate.

The Sun's story never quoted Conrad directly about the public option, and the senator's communications director, Sean Neary, told Salon that the story was inaccurate. Conrad has been telling his constituents that he won't let the government run their health care, which may be the cause of the confusion, but that language doesn't preclude the public option.

This isn't exactly the greatest news in the world, because there's no question that Kent Conrad has been fighting the public option -- but at least he doesn't feel comfortable committing himself to voting against it.

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Also see Davidsfr's diary on this story.