They used to love her, but it's all over now

Lisa Murkowski is very sorry. Sure she voted for the Blunt amendment but she didn't really mean it:

Murkowski called the Blunt Amendment a “messaging amendment” that “both sides know is not going to pass” and said “Republicans didn’t have enough sense to get off of it.” She also condemned Rush Limbaugh’s deragatory comments about a Georgetown law student testifying in favor of greater access to birth control. “I think women when they hear…mouthpieces like that say things like that they get concerned and they look to policymakers,” she said. “That’s where I feel like I have let these women down is that I have not helped to give these women the assurance they need that their health care rights are protected.”

Maybe she could have thought about that before she made her obligatory lockstep vote with the GOP opportunists and theocrats. Of course she would never do something like that again.

“If you had it to do over again, having had the weekend that you had with women being upset about the vote, do you think you would have voted the same?” I asked.

“No,” she said.

Oh had she only realized how pissed off the women whose write-in votes saved her from political annihilation at the hands of the Tea Party darling at the time. Everything would have been different.

We now turn the commentary portion of this post over to Kay at Balloon Juice who already said what I was thinking.

The amendment she voted for would have gutted federal (and state law) guarantees people in her state have now, regarding mandated health insurance coverage. She took people in Alaska backward, to less health care security. There is absolutely nothing in that amendment that would have barred any employer from declining to cover a whole range of health care services to a whole range of people. When Blunt was questioned on this, his one and only “assurance” was that federal courts would sort out what was a religious or moral objection. That’s an admission that the amendment itself offered no protection, and, again, these are protections people have now, under current federal and state law.

Murkowski regrets her vote because she’s finding out it’s politically unpopular. Did she not read and understand the amendment? What happens the next time she wants to “send a message” and actually passes a law?

The problem is, they don't read the bills. Senate votes, especially within the GOP, are preordained. They just say three Hail Marys and press the mandated button. Or else...

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]