All this week, it’s a visit from the Ghost of Christmas Cartoon Past.

#5: from December 7, 2006:

All of a sudden, Ben Nelson’s saying that even if his abortion demands are met, he’s got a problem with the Medicaid expansion, parroting Governor Heineman’s claim that it must be shot down because it’s an “unfunded mandate.” Alec MacGillis of the Washington Post did a little fact-checking, comparing Nelson’s claims to the actual legislation, and demonstrated how shallow these concerns are (not that this would surprise anyone at this point).

Matthew Yglesias gets to the significant point, though:

Let me also note that this whole process has been going on for months and Medicaid expansion has been at the core from the beginning. Nelson has had plenty of opportunity to try to come up with ideas on this score, and didn’t. The bill is also phased in very slowly, so if he wants to tweak the details of financing Medicaid expansion he could easily do so in 2010 or 2011 or 2012 or 2013 or 2014 or 2015 or 2016 before Nebraska has to pay a single cent on this. Derailing the process at this point over the idea that paying 7.2 percent of the cost (!) of Medicaid expansion in 2019 (!) will bankrupt the state reeks of someone who’s searching for reason to say “no.”

Paul Fell had some harsh words for Senator Ben Nelson in his e-mail newsletter this morning (which you can and should subscribe to here) in a piece called “A Bad Faith Liar”:

Over the weekend, on CBS’ “Face The Nation”, both Lieberman and Nelson seemed to argue vigorously against the new health care proposal – one that Sen. Nelson disingenuously helped to create – the details of which haven’t even been released to the entire Senate yet.

…

In the meantime, Sen. Nelson seems to think it’s acceptable to operate in bad faith, both to his colleagues, and to the Nebraskans he nominally represents in the Senate.

Mr. Nelson, we’re going to ask you for a present this holiday season: start telling the truth. Quit being a fraud. Be yourself instead of some lapdog for the insurance lobby.

If you’re against health care reform because the insurance companies own you, then please just have the courage to say it. Most Nebraskans already believe that you’re a lackey of the insurance companies anyway.

At least if you came out and HONESTLY opposed ANY health care reform, everyone would know where you stand – squarely in the pockets of big insurance.

I’m trying to think — the only one I can picture is the one on the 84th Street exit in Omaha and I’m not sure if that’s still there. Long ago, my roommate and I used to take regular early-morning trips to the one at the airport in Lincoln for second dinner, but I know that’s long gone.

Obama Drastically Scales Back Goals For America After Visiting Denny’s

Good comment from visitor dsimon on a Bruce Bartlett post differentiating between actual deficit hawks and jokers like Evan Bayh:

If our politicians can’t make hard choices–or even easy ones–maybe it’s because the public doesn’t really want to make them. If our budgets are consistently fiscally irresponsible, perhaps it’s because voters have wanted it that way. It’s been too easy from the time of Reagan to believe in the free lunch, and now we howl any time we’re asked to actually pay for the programs or tax cuts we say we want. But thing we care about are things we should be willing to do something about. When was the last time we were asked to actually do something regarding what we said we wanted from our government?

It wasn’t enough to protect insurers’ anti-trust exemption — Ben Nelson is ensuring that none of this monopoly-busting worms its way into anything — not even watered down, useless compromises:

[Florida Senator Tom] Carper is meeting with centrists such as Joe Lieberman, Olympia Snowe, Mary Landrieu, Ben Nelson, Evan Bayh and Blanche Lincoln asking them what kind of a trigger they might vote for. “What we’re asking centrists is: ‘What concerns do you need to have addressed to vote for cloture?’” Carper said. “And the two concerns that we hear over and over again is government run and government financed.” Both the hair trigger –which measures market penetration (an idea panned by at least one centrist, Nelson) — and Snowe’s trigger would institute government run public options on a state-by-state basis.

More on triggers here.

Senator Ben Nelson on a meeting he had with President Obama earlier this year: (emphasis added)

“I also assured him that I am working to be constructive and to move the process forward, so we can develop bipartisan reform that reduces the cost of health care, raises the quality, expands choices and extends coverage to those who cannot attain it today.”

This week:

Buckling to demands from Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), the Senate bill does not end anti-trust exemptions for the insurance industry.

He’s lied about the public option, tried to scare people that it wouldn’t work, then tried to scare people that it would work too well. None of Ben Nelson’s excuses for opposing a public option hold up to scrutiny, and none of his theatrics stopped Harry Reid from including a public option in the merged Finance / HELP healthcare bill.

But now Ben Nelson may have figured out how to finally kill it — with the abortion debate. Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly noted how Nelson has gone back and forth on making the healthcare bill abortion neutral:

First, Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) said he liked the Stupak amendment and would be “highly unlikely” to vote for health care reform unless it included the language, or something very close to it, in the final bill. Then, Nelson shifted gears, saying he misunderstood a reporter’s questions the first time, and is satisfied with Senate Dems’ restrictions on public funding of abortion.

Now, Nelson has moved back in the other direction again.

[…]

Nelson wants to kill the public option once and for all. In fact, Nelson said today, “If there’s no public option, perhaps some of the [abortion] problem goes away.”

The problem, then, isn’t with the abortion-related language — Nelson is just looking for leverage. The message to Reid, in effect, is, “You get rid of the public option and I’ll accept your provisions on abortion.”

This is on top of how Nelson has also decided the Senate needs to preserve insurance companies’ anti-trust exemption. He’s not even trying to hide who he’s working for anymore.

UPDATE: Ben Nelson has released a statement saying that he will not join the Republican filibuster attempting to prevent debate on the Senate healthcare bill, stating “Throughout my Senate career I have consistently rejected efforts to obstruct.” But then he turns around and quite clearly states that he will join a filibuster against a bill that he doesn’t support, thus preventing a vote and embracing efforts to obstruct:

“In my first reading, I support parts of the bill and oppose others I will work to fix. If that’s not possible, I will oppose the second cloture motion—needing 60 votes—to end debate, and oppose the final bill.

Healthcare for America Now just released a poll showing that 80% of Nebraskans think the bill deserves an up-or-down vote, regardless of whether they support it.

Typically around this time of the year, I start gathering up my favorite rejects to prepare for the Top Rejected Cartoons of the Year. But this year, since I’ve been doing a top 10 each month, and you folks have already seen all of them, I kind of feel like I need to do something a little different. I don’t really know yet what that something different would be, though, so I’m totally open to suggestions.

The only idea I had so far was to maybe make some kind of poll to have people vote on their favorite rejects, and then maybe I’d do finished versions of the top 5 or something. I don’t know if there’s necessarily any appeal to that, though, because I think part of the charm of the rejects is their rough and unfinished nature, so it’d be like “Here is a less interesting version of the winner!” Would a poll be good enough, just for the sake of interactivity?

Any thoughts?