Good times today.

The consensus has been from vote-counters of various skill and insight, that Nancy Pelosi doesn't have the votes to pass Health-care. That fact, day after day, doesn't make for a very good news story, so today the media focused on Pelosi's procedural options, and one in particular.

Deem and Pass. The Slaughter rule. The self-executing rule.

I'm going to avoid the hair-on-fire outrage of just about every conservative blog I've read on the subject and just point out the obvious--Congress still has to vote on health-care and its the votes, not the procedure that matters.

As a bit of explanation, Pelosi is essentially planning to do what software companies have been doing forever--bypassing your explicit acceptance of their licensing terms with an implicit acceptance. If you use this software or this website, you have agreed to our terms, or in the case of health-care legislation--if you vote for this 'rule', you implicitly vote to pass the Senate version of the healthcare legislation.

I have to wonder about the intelligence of any Congressperson who actually thinks this makes a bit of difference in the political calculus--the Senate bill will still become law, and the reconciliation bill is still at the mercy of the Senate who have little or no compelling interest in doing reconciliation if their bill is already law (which of course, it would be upon the President's signature).

The only really interesting thing about this is the realization of how desperate the Obama administration is to have this legislation passed. The sophisticated politicos on the Hill had to see how bad the optics were going to be on this, but clearly the alternative of not passing any bill is considered to be a far worse fate (with some justification).

The Daily Kos is a case in point. While conservative blogs get to write political obituaries on a bumpersticker (i.e. 'demon pass'), The Daily Kos was forced to write a detailed technical explanation of the process, as was Ezra Klein. You lose Buckwheat!

Its the perfect storm--damned as communist revolutionary, or damned as an incompetent.

UPDATE: The politics of the Slaughter rule (or solution) is so bad, that Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) is making it a campaign issue.

“Arkansans and most Americans are demanding more accountability from Washington, not less, so I believe that any plan to approve major reform without actually voting for it simply won’t fly outside the beltway,” Lincoln said. “The Senate had a full and transparent debate on health care reform last year. Because of my efforts, the original Senate proposal and the final Senate bill were both posted online 72 hours prior to their respective votes so that the public could review the bills. I took the additional step to post to my official Web site the bill language and every amendment that the full Senate considered to give Arkansans the opportunity to review the proposals.

“The House should vote on the Senate health bill under normal rules. I noticed that Bill Halter has called for more accountability in Washington, so I expect him to stand with me and support transparency throughout these final stages of the debate on health insurance reform.”

The unions and Daily Kossacks have dumped millions into her state's primary, trying to nominate Bill Halter to take the beating in November...