Lots of speculation out there about the announced retirements of Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and Chris Dodd (D-CT). Here's some more: What, if anything, do these retirements tell you about the "we'll fix it later" and "this is only the first step" memes that have cropped up in the wake of disappointments over the specifics of the bill?
There's still plenty of room to believe the bill's a great achievement, or for that matter, to believe it must be stopped. Or something in the middle, whatever that might mean. These retirements won't change you mind about that.
But if the thinking was that this was just a first step in a long process, or that the Congress could go immediately back to work after passage on smoothing out some of the bill's more irritating flaws, you might find it informative that two of the most senior Democrats in the Senate appear not to have much interest in fighting to stick around and be a part of that effort.
Now, it may well be that they just think the time has come to pass the torch on to someone else. Or it may be that they see a tough race ahead that leaves them with some serious doubts. But either way, these two (and maybe more yet to come) don't appear tempted by the prospect of being on hand to finish the job.
So is it because they don't want to? Don't feel certain they can make it across the finish line?
Or is it at least partially because they sense there won't be any quick return to this issue? That what we see now is essentially what we'll get, at least for that foreseeable chunk of the future that they'd be willing to wait at their posts?
Conversely, Twitter correspondents pose the equally intriguing question about what the retirements say about the wisdom of the "kill the bill and start over" meme. That's a good point, but I would distinguish it this way: "Killing" the bill (if that's really what the dissent was about) certainly looks like a far riskier idea now, in light of this news. But that's a prospective judgment. But if the retirements are in any way related to health care, they tell us something in retrospect about the "we'll come right back to it" meme.
Sure, it could conceivably be that both feel they've accomplished their life's work with regard to health care, are immensely proud of the bill as it now stands, and are leaving the game fully satisfied. But even the bill's biggest fans aren't selling that line, and Dorgan leaves having seen his cause of legalized drug reimportation defeated or at least deferred, and Dodd leaves having seen the public option he fought in Ted Kennedy's place to include in his version of the bill set aside as well.
The two announcements, even coming so close in time to one another, need not necessarily be read for anything more than their face value. (But what fun would that be?) It does make you wonder, though, whether something in the way the private, informal negotiations on the bill are going convinced these two long-time, very senior incumbents that it was time to walk away.