It must finally be clear to us all that the stumbling block to successful health/disease care reform has been definitively reduced to two words. They're not "public option" or "single payer", they're "Max Baucus".
He was not elected to eliminate the Democratic Majority in the Finance Committee, but that's what he's done. It was not mandated that he exclude a representative expert on single payer from his 15-person advisory board but that's what he did. More than that, he's filled his campaign coffers with millions of dollars of Insurance Company money, for heaven's sake. Fine that he sits there holding the president's suit coat at that town hall meeting, great that he gets identified by the president a bunch of times. Great, because now we can all have a good look at who he is, sitting there squirming in the spotlight.
Enough sitting. It's time Max Baucus stands up and is counted, and if he can't get up on his own then Rahm Emanuel with someone hefty should go grab him by the scruff of his neck, stand him up and shake some sense into him. Standing by the likes of Grassley only counts with the insurance profiteers. It doesn't count with us. Stand up, Max Baucus, stand up for what's right or you'll be sitting down for a long, long time!