Ah, politics

Just a few days ago, it was thought that Nancy Pelosi didn't have the votes to get the HR 3962 passed by the House of Representatives. Then, something very interesting happened. The parts of the bill which authorized the funding of abortion (which many lefties insisted did not exist) were struck down in an amendment sponsored by Bart Stupak, a pro-life Democrat from Michigan. Republicans and some conservative Democrats got on board with the Stupak amendment and got it passed.

So far so good, but once the Stupak amendment was passed, many conservative Democrats who were previously going to vote against HR 3962 then used the passage of the Stupak amendment as an excuse to get on board with Pelosi and vote in favor of HR 3962. Enough fence sitters changed their voting intentions so that the bill that might not have passed, did indeed pass.

So, to review, HR 3962 passed largely because a ban against federally funded abortions was inserted into it.

Now, here is where politics come in. The expectation of House Democrats is that once the House version of this bill is melded with the Senate version in Conference Committee, the Stupak amendment will be removed from the finished bill, giving exactly what Pelosi and her minions wanted all along, even though the reason the House version passed in the first place is because abortion funding was removed.

As deputy whip Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, a far-left Democrat from Florida, said on MSNBC:

I am confident that when [the bill] comes back from the conference committee that that [abortion] language won't be there,” Wasserman Schultz said during an appearance on MSNBC. “And I think we're all going to be working very hard, particularly the pro-choice members, to make sure that's the case.

All par for the course in the fever swamps of Washington.

Good Day to You, Sir