I was working on a rational, dispassionate diary analyzing where we now stand and where we go from here. You can get a flavor of what it would have been -- and will likely be tomorrow, if I publish it then -- from this comment (and another one or two) over in nyceve's diary. But as I was writing it, I realized that I'm not quite ready for full-bore rationality yet. I have something to get off of my chest first.
Senator Olympia Snowe, you may be the biggest, most pathetic bonehead in the Senate.
Do you see what Ben Nelson just did? That could have been you.
Simply by not dithering, you could have prevented these encroachments on reproductive rights.
Now, are you too dense to realize that you still could?
All that gravy going to Nebraska? It could be going to Maine.
Those stupid new restrictions on reproductive choice? They are only there because you wouldn't be the 60th vote!
Here's how boneheaded you are: in a couple of years, you're going to want to become a Democrat anyway! You're going to realize soon enough that you're not winning a Republican primary in Maine. Your own Pat Toomey, who chased out Arlen Specter, is waiting in the wings somewhere, having cut his or her teeth on the anti-gay initiative last month. And when you come knocking at our door, you have just massively improved the odds that we will tell you to GET LOST!
Because the fact that this bill is so bad is YOUR FAULT! You're perhaps the only person who not only could have prevented it, but as a matter of political advantage you should have! (Your Mini-Me Susan Collins is the other possibility -- and between the two of you we could also have rolled back Lieberman's screwing with the bill as well.)
You didn't want to be rushed? Well, the train was leaving the station, Senator? A non-bonehead would noticed the smoke coming out of the stack! You had all the time you needed, but you wanted instead to be seen as dithering!
By the way: the Republicans don't like your dithering either! You're already in deep chowder with them, bonehead! You've only succeeded, by using 2007 vintage posturing, in alienating everyone!
You could have asked for a package of changes that would have worsened the bill, from the progressive perspective, so long as it was not as much.
But -- you didn't. Because you are a bonehead.
You are also a traitor to the cause of women's rights, because you could have stopped this.
There's one way to salvation: let Reid know that you (and bring Collins with you if you can), are willing to vote for a bill that is weakened in some ways that you can work out with him, so long as those changes are not as bad as what we have now.
You can -- maybe -- still use your negotiating leverage here.
But that would be a non-boneheaded move -- so perhaps that disqualifies you.
Have fun in your 2012 primary. We'll be watching, pointing, and laughing. But we won't be throwing you a life-preserver, because you've just demonstrated that, when the chips are down, you're not worth saving. This is political stupidity that belongs in the Political Boneheadedness Hall of Fame.
Update: There are many good comments below, but psnyder's theory actually made me laugh out loud:
I think you're being too hard on her. Maybe she just loves Nebraska.
Update 2: Read Nate's premature retrospective on health care reform. It isn't really on the diary topic, but it's worth reading anyway.
Update from Sunday afternoon: Didn't work. She's still a bonehead.
