[jrbick]

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I know that the insiders always get caught up in the minutiae of "Well the bill may not pass because Senator X has the privilege of holding up any bill he wants as long as it is cloudy weather at 3pm on a Monday, and even if he doesn't, all of the office typewriters may be broken", but it just seems to me that more legislators want this passed than not, that there is some natural posturing before striking a deal, and there is nothing overly substantive stopping it.

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I know it might seem that way, but the extremely high degree of infighting, coupled with the extremely compressed time schedule, makes the possibility that the bill gets stuck quite high. The conference committee report has been held up for weeks as the conferees are fighting about what sort of prayers military chaplains should be able to say. Now at literally the eleventh hour, the Speaker of the House has stepped in and instisted on the insertion of two items that are orders of magnitude more contentious than the military prayer issue.

Honestly, I think there's a possibility that Hastert is trying to force a stalemate. I think he figures that if the bill passes with his riders attached, that gives Republicans a couple of extra talking points for the campaign trail. And if it doesn't pass, that might be even better, because he can tar Democrats with the "OBSTRUCTIONIST!" brush.

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Wow that's a very interesting/encouraging point here. I mean, I won't feel better until this session adjourns with online poker in the clear, but this is a valid point of encouragement to tag onto grassroots efforts on our part as well as all of the other elements geared in our favor (time, priority issues, controversial issues bogging down the process, etc etc).