The Booker bashing is why we lose.

[pnwmom]

169. You don't remember enough. You don't remember that the reason we couldn't

have a public option was because that 60 vote majority we had for a few months included the Independent, Joe Lieberman -- who refused to consider any bill that included it a public option.

We were only able to pass a Senate bill that Lieberman would vote for, and the items on your wish list weren't on his.

After we had that bill passed, the intent was to go to the House where a more liberal bill with a public option could be passed -- and then the conference committee between the two houses were expected to agree on a bill more like the House bill.

But something happened that changed everything: Kennedy died. The ONLY way to get anything passed at that time was to take the Senate bill, INTACT, just as Kennedy had voted on it, to the House, and to get the House to pass it AS-IS.

So that's how we wound up with the more conservative Senate bill. We had no choice because we lost our 60 votes when Kennedy died -- and we were stuck with the version that got approved when he was alive, that was limited by what Lieberman would agree to.