Blowing with the vomit-inducing wind

This morning the Politico reports that although Sen. Mary Landrieu, conservative Democrat from a hurricane-ravaged hell, "signed a letter in November affirming support for a public [health] insurance option," she now says, through a spokesman, that she didn't "necessarily look at it word for word."

No, she only "skimmed" the November, full-campaign-mode letter to Health Care for America Now, and, thinking that by and large it looked OK, she signed it, thereby "agree[ing] to back its principles, 'including the right to keep your current insurance, choose another private plan or to join a public health insurance plan.' "

Now comes "clarification." This Thursday Sen. Landrieu "seemed to contradict the pledge when she told reporters that she doesn't support the public option." Yet seemingly, there's no seeming to it. She either supports it or she doesn't, and her latest, quite unambiguously, is that she doesn't.

That, however, doesn't mean she can't fudge again with the best of them, among whom the very best in my opinion is Rep. Loretta Sanchez, conservative Democrat from a fiscal basket case. Ms. Sanchez is a member of the Blue Dog Coalition, and as such signed its letter of principles opposing a public health care option for the time being.

But this week she appeared on MSNBC with David Shuster, and, considering as she did, I guess, MSNBC's rather left-leaning demographics, she declared all that earlier stuff about opposing a public plan to be just a big and silly misunderstanding. Oh yeah, sure, she said, she signed the letter all right, but heavens that doesn't mean she actually agrees with it.

Shuster didn't know whether to laugh or vomit. Since he was on the air, he laughed. I vomited.

So as a Democratic member of the United States Congress you can first support a public health plan and then oppose it, or you can oppose it and then support it, or you can simultaneously sort of oppose it and sort of support it -- depending entirely on the hour of day, place, and audience.

Integrity. Always integrity. That's what sustains us through these troubled times.