Fwank to Woss: I See Yo-ah Blue Dawgs and Waise You the Pwogwessive Caucus

Sausage is getting made in the House on health care reform. And it ain't pretty.

First, Mike Ross and his 54-strong Blue Dog Coaltion put the brakes on the monorail-speed health care legislation. Ross claimed that the decidedly more liberal Party Leadership was excluding the input of moderate Democrats while hammering out legislation that would affect all constituencies.

It lead to a big stink being raised by the Blue Dogs, a signing of a letter, and subsequent concessions being made for moderates, namely the punting of the debate into September. Because nothing says "I'm dead freaking serious" like a sternly worded letter.

This effectively derailed the arrival of legislation past its deadline of before the August recess. Many have called this a tremendous victory for Ross and the Blue Dogs. Many Republicans are claiming that they have a newfound hope that they can stop this legislation as successfully as they did in the early 90's during the Clinton Administration, which I'm not sure was the intention of the Blue Dogs.

Not so fat fast!, says U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass, and his band of mewwy cohawts. According to Patty O'Conner of O'Politic, House Democrats of the more liberal persuasion are running a play from the Blue Dog playbook. The Congressional Progressive Caucus, boasting a 83 member roster, has authored its own letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, reaffirming their goals to get health care legislation passed, including beinhg prepared to vote against any bill that doesn't require government-sponsored public health care plans to pay providers some multiple of Medicare costs.

Frank has already gone on the record to say that he would not vote for the health care legislation that seemed to be proposed at the compromisorial meeting between Waxman and the Blue Dogs.

There are 435 members of the House. 54 are Blue Dogs ready to stop this health care funride. 83 are in the Progressive Caucus and there are 178 Republicans, who now, by the way, are seeing an open door to bluntly opposing all of the proposed legislation lock, stock and barrel, without fear of partisan backlash - if the Democrats can't get on the same page, why should Republicans?

I'm no doctor but it seems like either 232 or 261 or maybe more stand ready to oppose this bill. Those shouldn't be confident numbers on either side. Expect this August recess to be less about hammering out policy and more about getting these Blue Dogs and these Progressives reading from the same page of the hymnal.