Rep. Bart Stupak emerged from his office bunker Sunday to announce his support for the health-care bill, after weeks of paralyzing the negotiation process with unfounded charges that the bill allowed federal funds to be used for abortion.

Flanked by his wife and several House colleagues, Stupak thanked them for standing by him during the difficult weeks spent obstructing the health-care reform  with a bogus argument in an effort introduce new restrictions on women seeking to use their insurance coverage to pay for abortion services.

For a while, it looked like Stupak might be able to succeed in bringing down healthcare reform where Republicans had failed. No amount of parsing of the bill could persuade the sanctimonious Stupak to give up his give up his crusade, even as his Blue Dog colleague began switching their votes one by one.

When an organization of 59,000 Catholic nuns sent letters to every member of Congress urging the passage of health-care reform legislation, calling it “the real pro-life stance” it was not good enough for St. Bart.

“When I’m drafting pro-life legislation, I don’t call up nuns,” sniffed Stupak, who preferred instead to listen to Catholic  bishops who have a very poor track record when it comes to women’s health issues. The Catholic Health Association, a group of 1.200 Catholic hospitals also called for support of the healthcare reform, but that wasn’t good enough for Stupak either.

Plainly, Stupak had another agenda, and he was betting that Democrats would be so desperate to pass healthcare reform he could use it as an opportunity advance anti-choice legislation beyond the Hyde Amendment, which already prohibits federal funding of abortion.  And he almost got away with it, until House Speaker Nancy Pelosi finally called the game, and refused to accept any changes to the  bill already passed or further amendments.

It’s likely that Stupak was working on behalf of his C Street cabal, a fundamentalist Christian organization for powerful Washington insiders, but we’ll probably never know for sure. Stupak likes to claim he never even heard of “The Family.” even though he has lived in a townhouse owned by them for years.

As the vote came down to the wire, the Democrats were again forced to turn back to Stupak, but this time, with an assurance that he would get a executive order from President Obama that will simply re-state current federal law, Stupak climbed down off the limb.

All that effort has earned him a Democratic primary challenge from Connie Saltonstall a pro-choice candidate who says that Stupak is ,”willing to block important legislation to support his own agenda at the expense of those he was elected to represent.” And finally, after the bill was passed, Stupak got called “a baby-killer,” by a right-wing lawmaker.

What happens if Democrats can’t get together to pass health care reform?

Blue Dog Rep.  Bart Stupak hopes to hijack the health-care bill for a  chance to create more restrictive abortion laws. The House Progressive caucus hates the Senate bill so much they barely have enough votes to pass the ‘Senate’s “individual mandate” bill so that it can be tweaked during reconciliation.

The public option. a favorite of the Democratic base,  still remains in the wilderness without enough House or Senate members to convince the White House its worth fighting for.

And of course, with all those Republican amendments and  new ideas from the healthcare summit cluttering up the legislation, no Republicans are willing to vote for anything that contains their own ideas.

During a meeting with various Democrats, President Obama is said to have told the group that his presidency was on the line with this vote.

It is, and its even more than that.  What happens when Democrats fail to pass this bill with all its flaws is that they give up their right to govern.  They will not be able to move on to a jobs bill or reining in Wall Street or reforming student loans.  Healthcare will remain unchanged, and health insurance companies will have free reign to bankrupt millions more people with huge jumps in insurance rates every year or every six months or whenever.

That’s why Republicans dreamed for a moment that they could convince Obama to scrap the bill and start over.  It would have just been short-cut  - a Democratic loss 9 months early  in March instead of November.

After raising the hopes that the Democrats could tackle one of the most important issues of our time – access  for all to healthcare – Democrats failure to pass healthcare reform will prove they are not able to stand up to the interests that have fought Social Security, Medicare,  and universal healthcare for 70 years.

If the Democrats fail, it will prove that special interests – Big Pharma, health insurance industry and big banks and corporations –  have permanent control of our government, regardless of how many concessions are made to them, and there is no check on their power.  It’s what everyone has suspected  and the Democrats failure will confirm that.

The Republicans, “a wholly owned subsidiary of the insurance companies,” as Congressman Anthony Wiener called them, will initially appear to benefit, as they push their anti-middle class, anti-regulation, corporations-first agenda while telling the rubes they’re being protected against socialism.   The Wall Street banks will know for certain that no one can stop them as they create more worthless derivatives and step up foreclosures on millions more homes.

If healthcare reform, even in its present state, goes down so does rest of it.  Obama’s “Waterloo,” will be ours too.

A cost of 200 million dollars, hundreds of hours of police overtime, dozens of checkpoints and metal gates to fence off downtown Manhattan loomed at the prospect of the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, 9/11 mastermind.

New Yorkers would face disrupted traffic, closed subway stations and restricted access to the Foley Square area where Mohammed would have been tried in court. It would be unlike anything ever seen before.

But it now appears that all that security overkill will not be necessary. KSM will not be tried in federal court as previously announced by US Attorney General Eric Holder.

At first  backing the plan, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly asked for 75 million to hold the trial, and then raised it to 216 million after fear-mongering politicians lined up to denounce the plan and weave doomsday scenarios for their constituents.

Rep. Peter King began hyperventilating, calling the trial “the most irresponsible decision ever made by a president.” King and others warned that using the US court system to try terrorists was an invitation to mayhem. Fox News had its usual field day.

Other Al-Qaida suspects have been tried in federal court and convicted over the past several years – Richard Reid, the Shoe-Bomber. Zacarias Moussaoui, the 20th hijacker, Ramzi Yousef, who helped to plan and carry out the first attack on the World Trade Center. And let’s not forget Timothy McVeigh, a terrorist who perpetrated the largest attack on US  soil until Sept.  11.2001.

None of these trials brought any further incidents of terrorism or caused disruption that brought daily life to halt.

Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani a suspect in the bombings of the US Embassy in Tanzania and Kenya, has been going back and forth to his pre-trial hearings in Manhattan  federal court for the past year without fences or checkpoints and no one in New York seems to care.

But KSM is different, or so we’re told.  Over time, he’s morphed into a ten-foot terrorist whose very presence threatens us all, despite being locked up for the past three years and water-boarded 186 times. We’re still scared of him, or least some people want us to be.

Unlike the others, KSM has achieved mythic status. Never mind that all the rest of  these once dangerous terrorists are rotting in some supermax prison, KSM is so dangerous no prison can hold him.

Former Vice-President Dick Cheney has done his part, issuing dark warnings about dangers he never really specifies.  That has enabled other fear-mongering politicians to fund-raise off the anxiety of their constituents. Business has been good.

Now Holder has been unable to find a place to hold the trial. It appears that New Yorkers – victims of the worst terrorist attack on US soil- will never have their chance to sit in judgement of  Khalid Sheik Mohammed.

Much to the chagrin of his supporters, President Obama continues to reach out to Republicans in the final push to pass healthcare legislation.

The upcoming healthcare summit with GOP leaders will be televised with Obama doing more outreach to Republicans in Congress than George Bush did over eight years.

The “party of no” has used everything from threats of death panels to charges of socialism to successfully stonewall  Obama and the Democrats. The single House Republican who voted for the healthcare reform bill, Joseph Cao of Louisiana, has pledged not to do so again.  An entire movement of Obama-hating birthers has sprung up to loudly oppose healthcare reform while carrying signs with Nazi swastikas.

Democrats probably thought  Obama was giving lip service to bi-partisanship like most politicians – its nice when you can get it,  but if you can’t screw ‘em. It turns out that is not the case, and  his supporters have been thrown into consternation ever since.  Progressives saw their idea of a single payer or public option jettisoned long ago in an attempt to gain bipartisanship, and his support among them has nose-dived.

Obama truly believes in bi-partisanship – even after months of chasing Olympia Snowe and still getting a no.  He told Republicans in a televised retreat session that he is open to their ideas, even as they reject their own ideas that are included in the bill.

The Blue Dogs have exploited the situation by forming their own ”just say no” wing in the Democratic party.  Joe Lieberman had the smile of undertaker when he finally voted for a bill that he felt certain would never pass, and if it did, it   contained little actual reform. The last true statesman in the Senate – Ted Kennedy – passed away just as the healthcare reform process got underway.

The “us and them” polarization of our government has metastasized over the past 15 years to the monster it is today.  Obama appears to be the only one in Washington who truly wants to be bi-partisan.  Right now, that makes him a party of one.

In an apparent attempt to embarrass Sen. Mary Landrieu, right-wing activist and so-called investigative journalist  James O’Keefe is facing federal charges that could earn him prison time.  U.S. Marshal’s were not laughing when  they arrested O’Keefe and his Republican think tank cohorts after their failed attempt to gain access to phone lines at the GSA offices, the communications hub for Landrieu’s Senate office in Louisiana.  O’Keefe and three others have been charged with entering federal property for the purpose of committing a felony.

Until recently, OKeefe was basking in the glow of praise from Fox News for his” pimp and ‘ho” stunt that damaged the reputation of the community organization ACORN. The group had for years helped to secure the voting rights of poor and working class Americans despite right-wing efforts to disenfranchise them.  ACORN lost its funding, most of staff, and had its legal rights unconstitutionally trampled by a bill of attainder passed by the Congress. A recent ruling by a federal judge that lifted the group’s funding ban came only after the damage had already been done.

As a result, O’Keefe began believing he was a real journalist, rather than a political hack. He was even paid to give speeches about ‘new journalism” at the Pelican Institute. But  the average  newspaper summer intern could have more handled the story of Landrieu’s overloaded phone lines more competently.

But  accurate, fact-based reporting was  not why O’Keefe and his frat boy colleagues went to Landrieu’s office.  Dressed as fake phone repairmen, they believed they could recreate their ACORN success by capturing video and splicing words and images together to reveal something that never happened, as they did in ACORN’s offices.  Unlike ACORN, however, his new targets had the power to protect their rights, and to enforce the law. Let’s see what happens when the ‘ACORN pimp” faces a federal judge next month.