Ben Smith writes that if the health care bill passes with “unified, if grumbly, support on the left, it would seem to vindicate the White House’s fundamental approach, which was to take the left for granted as much as possible and focus on courting marginal members of the Senate.”

He’s absolutely right. As I told Jonathan Weisman of the Wall Street Journal the other day (which he didn’t print), “f#%king r$%ards” worked.

The President’s new health care bill does not include a public option, but it does increase the maximum penalty for failure to comply with the mandate to buy health insurance, which rises from 2% to 2.5% of annual income (PDF). But for months now, polling has shown that a mandate with no public option is [...]

I don’t know who thought that penalizing people 2% of their income if they refuse to buy the product of private insurance companies was a good idea. Maybe the same guy who thought NAFTA would be a winner for the Democrats in 1994.