The latest despatch from the Hill (dated tomorrow) makes my head hurt.

It starts where it means to go on:

House Democratic leaders will not whip the Iraq supplemental spending bill, on grounds they don't want to apply political pressure on a matter of war and peace.

"It's a conscience vote," House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said after yesterday's Democratic Caucus meeting. But he added his office had begun to "survey" members now that more are looking at the 170-page bill.

"Have we got the 218 votes to pass it? I don't know," Clyburn said.

Hold on one cotton picking minute! you might be some justification cry, having read over the weekend the gaudy Post story of leadership torture-chambers persuading the Progs to back the toothless bill they despise.

(Or read my piece on it, at any rate.)

At that stage, there was nary a doubt that Pelosi and Co were intent on whipping their troops to within an inch of their miserable lives in order to get their wretched bill passed. (Not the Blue Dogs, obviously.)

If any leadership member mentioned vote of conscience back then, I don't remember reading about it.

But, according to Clyburn,

House leaders normally do not whip votes of conscience. But just because they are not whipping does not mean they are not counting. As Clyburn suggested, they can "survey" members of the caucus, which they have been doing since last week.

Mmm.

According to the Hill's sources,

Democratic leaders expected to know where they stand on the vote count after two afternoon meetings yesterday with their chief deputy whips and senior whips, said a Democratic lawmaker with close ties to leadership.

So, on that timing, they should know by now.

Which brings us to the count:

Democrats may be at least 10 votes down due to liberal defections. That would give them a cushion of just five votes to spare to pass the bill.

Nine liberal Democrats -- Reps. Lynn Woolsey (Calif.), Diane Watson (Calif.), Juanita Millender-McDonald (Calif.), Sheila Jackson Lee (Texas), Lloyd Doggett (Texas), Maxine Waters (Calif.), Steve Cohen (Tenn.), Keith Ellison (Minn.) and Dennis Kucinich (Ohio) -- expressed opposition last week to the massive spending bill.

In addition, Rep. Jim Marshall, a conservative Georgia Democrat, will likely vote against the measure because he opposes a specific date for withdrawal, said his spokesman.

A bit earlier, Matt was saying

From a source close to the House Democratic caucus, here's a list of Blue Dogs that don't want to vote for this bill because it has a certain date for withdrawal.  

And he named 17 reps, including Marshall.

That's 26 votes in doubt so far.

The Hill piece also identifies Carney of PA as doubtful.

The obvious explanation for the apparent leadership volte-face is that, at some stage between then and now, they concluded that they probably haven't got the votes to pass the bill, so now want to discount to the max the bill's chances of passage.

No cause for the least bit of celebration yet among lefty forces. But at least it seems that the game is still close enough to be interesting.