What I Want To Believe

Harry Reid just told Max Baucus to get with the program. The same day the 60th Democratic senator was sworn in.
So when I say Kabuki, this is what I mean, from a couple of TPM insiders who don't just jump all over the latest news story like it's the next worst thing:

Bipartisanship--defined. The press is focusing on the votes in Congress to determine bipartisanship rather than the elctorate. The Congressional Republicans have been so isolated that they answer only to a small proportion of the total electorate --about 18%--who control the Republican primaries in most states and districts.
Obama is focusing on are the Republican-leaning voters who do not self-identify as Republicans to strangers on the telephone (in polls) but have definite tendencies to vote Republican as well as true independents. What he, and the Democratic Senate leadership, have been doing is reaching out to the Republican officeholders knowing that they probably will spurn their advances. The real conversation is with the Republican leaners and independents in the electorate, and there are clear signs, I beleive, that that conversation has succeeded. Obama does not have to get the Congressional Republican votes (so long as he gets his bills enacted) to be perceived as bipartisan by the electorate--he just has to been seen as trying in a good faith effort and coming part way. The refrain of "party of no" is taking hold among the elctorate I identified above who are deciding increasingly that it is the Republicans who are at fault and not being bipartisan--a perception which, for once, comports with reality.
Obama has, thus far, manuevered the Republicans into an increasingly isolated position among the electorate and you would be surprised how many in the Republican Congressional leadership have not figured it out. A couple of momths ago I predicted to severl friends that next year the Democrats would NET four seats in the Senate and 10-12 in the House. I am increasingly confident of that prediction.

Obama, Reid and Pelosi between them have total responsibility to keep the government functioning in spite of the asinine and unified obstructionist actions and language of the Republicans as dominated by the talk show hosts. Obama has done a masterful job of playing the Republicans so that the only positions they could take to oppose him have been more self-destructive than effectively obstructionist on the large issues.
Between Pelosi and Reid, Pelosi has the easier job because of no filibuster. Not easy, but much easier than Reid's job. She still has to mollify the Blue Dogs who are almost as skittish as the Republicans because they fear the next primary. So Pelosi has compromised with both the Republicans and the Blue Dogs to a greater extent than any of us like at all.
Reid with only 59 Democrats until today as well as the filibuster which the Republicans are only mildly hesitant to use was in much worse situation than Pelosi. I'd bet he has been counting votes very closely and keeping the conservative Democratic Senators mollified.
But two things have just changed. Al Franken was sworn in today and the big initiative - health care - is in the balance. This is once in a lifetime, not just in a political career. I'm more and more convinced that the three top Democrats - Obama, Reid and Pelosi, have been gearing everything to powering the health care bill into enactment this year. That's the reason for the refusal to accept delays, and I think they have allowed some things to be enacted that they hate (I know I do) so as to not waste Presidential power on secondary issues. But now we are in the main bout. If I am right, then the gloves are going to come off.
We'll get only hints of the machinations because they aren't even inside the beltway. They are inside the Senate and House. and the Press mostly hasn't a clue, and the ones who have read Richard E. Neustadt's book "Presidential Power" will find that it runs counter to the permitted media narrative. But some reporter with inside connections on the Hill and the smarts to apply Neaustadt's teachings has one Hell of a great book to write, much like Sorenson's "Making of the President."
Anyway, that's what I think has been happening since Obama as inaugurated. This month is the climax of the story.