Durbin to House Democrats: We are not the enemy

As the reconciliation drama has unfolded in the wake of the Massachusetts Senate election, I have been repeatedly astonished at evidence that many House Democrats seem more concerned about getting rolled by the Senate than about getting rolled by Republicans -- as if an HCR bill that looks more like the Senate bill than they would like would be a worse defeat than failing to pass comprehensive reform at all.

Today, on Meet the Press, Dick Durbin articulated this sentiment, put it in historical context, and made a bid to defuse it:

SEN. DICK DURBIN (D-IL):  Tom, when I served in the House, we used to say in the House Democratic Caucus, "The Republicans are our opponents, but the Senate is the enemy." So I can understand the built-in skepticism and lack of trust.  But I'll tell you this, we're in the process of actually contacting every single Democratic senator.  When Nancy Pelosi goes before her House Democratic Caucus, it will be with the solid assurance that when reconciliation comes over to the Senate side, we're going to pass it.

Reconciliation explanation fail, cont.

Recently Jonathan Chait called out The New York Times for failing to spell out that the Democrats are not trying to pass their whole health care bill through reconciliation, but rather to use reconciliation to "patch" the Senate bill:

Now that they've lost the ability to break a filibuster, Democrats plan to have the House pass the Senate bill, and then use reconciliation to enact changes to the Senate bill demanded by the House. These changes -- higher subsidy levels, different kinds of taxes to pay for them, nixing the Nebraska Medicaid deal -- mainly involve taxes and spending. In other words, they're exactly the kinds of policies that are well-suited for reconciliation.

It's not just The Hill that misses the distinction, but the whole political media. Here's Sunday's New York Times:

Many Democrats in Congress said they doubted that it was feasible to pass a major health care bill with a parliamentary tool called reconciliation, which is used to speed adoption of budget and tax legislation. Reconciliation requires only 51 votes for passage in the Senate, but entails procedural and political risks.

Again, using reconciliation to patch up the Senate bill is a totally different thing than using it to pass an entire health care bill. I can understand why Republicans would treat them as identical -- they're spinning for partisan purposes. Reporters covering this issue have no good excuse.

Today, it's The Wall Street Journal that fails in this basic bit of exposition in its report on Obama's health care proposal: