NP: Steve Morse, High Tension Wires

The emerging storyline in the health care debate seems to be that there are other alternatives to the public option emerging as the Senate gets down to business. Kevin Drum says he would take the Medicare buy-in over the current public option proposal, and Steven Benen notes that the "OPM Plan" is gaining some momentum, even among public option skeptics like Blanche Lincoln and Joe Lieberman.

The first read on these alternatives is that they are, in fact, good ideas, and credible alternatives to the public option. If that turns out to be true, and if one of them ends up in the final bill, do you think that the President will get an apology from the hysterical left for deriding his consistent position that the public option wasn't a make-or-break element of the plan? Or for their threats of fielding a primary challenger if it wasn't in the final bill.

If it does turn out to be true -- and I'm about half a day behind on my political reading, so things may have changed again -- I think Obama's strategic approach starts to become the stuff of legend, because for all the bullshit short-term criticisms he's had to endure, his long-term view may ultimately prevail, and in Washington, that's really saying something.