Care for a Knife?

Recent events in the health care reform debate have made for some interesting news. It seems Independent Senator Joe Lieberman has announced that he would help with attempts to filibuster a Senate proposal that would include a public option. Democrats and Leftists were not shy about their disdain for Lieberman and his decision, claiming that he was in the back pocket of Big Health Care. (For the record, so is Chris Dodd, and the Left isn't going after him...because he's in favor of the Senate plan.)

On the House side, things aren't much better. Michigan Democrat Bart Stupak recently said that he isn't exactly one of Nancy Pelosi's favorite Democrats because of his efforts to change provisions in the House version of the health care reform bill that would allow federal funding of abortions. Some House Democrats aren't thrilled with Stupak and I'm sure he's enduring the same kind of barbs being thrown at Senator Lieberman.

I've said before that the longer the health care reform debate goes on, the less likely it will be that any bill comes out of Congress this year, or perhaps any year. Combine that with a growing sentiment within the Democratic Party that their leadership has failed them, and you have the beginning of what could be an explosive political situation.

More intriguing to me, however, is how willing some Democrats are to throw aside people who don't follow "the party line." From the party who tells Republicans that they're ruining their party by driving out more moderate voices, it's even more ironic. The Democrats are willing to push people like Lieberman and Stupak out of the party when the party needs their voices now more than ever. Their party is on the verge of splitting down the seams at a time when President Obama needs a united front to pass an important piece of legislation for the President.

Instead, they're cutting off their noses to spite their faces.