I am a bigger fan of bipartisanship than most here in the liberal blogosphere, and after all that's been said about Ted Kennedy's record the past few days, I don't think I need to explain why. However, while bipartisanship should be an important part of any legislative process, the end goal of the legislative process is, as that phrase would imply, legislation. I cheered my former boss, Max Baucus, when he began his Senate Finance Committee negotiations, but my cheering was short-lived. You can only hold out an unshook hand for so long before your arm muscles get tired. Mine got tired when the August recess began and Baucus's Republican counterpart Charles Grassley started shilling for Glenn Beck.

Some folks have stronger arm muscles than mine. Fair enough, but after today's news, no one can continue to hold out that arm without an illegal dose of morphine. Mike Enzi (R-WY), another member of Baucus' working group, jumped ship today in his party's official weekly radio address.

A leading GOP negotiator on health care struck a further blow to fading chances of a bipartisan compromise by saying Democratic proposals would restrict medical choices and make the country's "finances sicker without saving you money." The criticism from Sen. Michael Enzi, R-Wyo., echoed that of many opponents of the Democratic plans under consideration in Congress. But Enzi's judgment was especially noteworthy because he is one of only three Republicans who have been willing to consider a bipartisan bill in the Senate...

"I heard a lot of frustration and anger as I traveled across my home state this last few weeks," said Enzi, who has been targeted by critics for seeking to negotiate on legislation. "People in Wyoming and across the country are anxious about what Washington has in mind. This is big. This is personal. This is one of the most important debates of our lifetime."... Enzi said: "This will result in cutting hundreds of billions of dollars from the elderly to create new government programs."

This very un-bipartisan language comes on the heels of yesterday's comments from Senators John Barrasso (R-WY) and Bob Bennett (R-UT) that "the No. 1 assignment in 2009 is to kill Obamacare." And of course, Republican Whip Jon Kyl (R-AZ) has made it clear that there will be no compromises, and Jim DeMint (R-SC) famously said health care should be the President's "Waterloo." Let's boil that down: the Minority Whip, two of the three Republican Finance negotiators, and several of their conservative allies have gone out of their way to make it clear there will be no bipartisan bill. It's not the Democrats' fault that the bipartisan process American voters say they want has failed - they tried, and the Party Of No lived up to its name. This became clear and it became time to move on several weeks ago, and if Baucus and Emmanuel didn't get it then, they should certainly get it now. The failure of bipartisanship may not be their fault, but if they ignore that failure and keep pressing the deathers, then the failure to pass strong health care reform will be their fault. They wanted to negotiate away the public option? I didn't like it, but like Paul Krugman, I would have lived for the sake of passage. Until now, that is - no point negotiating it away if there's no one to negotiate with.

Let Finance do what Finance will do, but pass the public option in conference. There are almost certainly fifty votes for it in the Senate, and we can almost certainly pressure Snowe, Collins, Nelson (NE), Pryor, Lieberman, and others into voting no on the bill but yes on cloture. We can get sixty votes for cloture and then pass the bill with a Biden tie-breaker.

I was waffely, but Chuck Grassley and Ted Kennedy galvanized me. Mike Enzi's speech is the final jolt liberals needed. No excuses anymore. Like Bob Cesca says, "healthcare reform named after Ted Kennedy must not suck."