Greta Examines Health Care Sausage Making and Ben Nelson Plays Dumb

This link is to a thirty minute long interview of Sen. Ben Nelson conducted by Greta Van Susteren. It can be mind numbing at times. As Greta tries to find out exactly what happened, the closer she comes to anything that might be embarrassing or illegal the dumber Nelson acts. I came away feeling that Nelson had only a cursory knowledge of what was in the bill he voted for. He has a very high opinion of himself and his own motives and will not speak ill of another Democrat. He claims that his main concern was to keep the federal government from taking over the nation's health care system.
Nelson says he was a little concerned that all states will be saddled with an enormous unfunded mandate and that he was acting to keep that from happening. But he will admit that he did not bring that about. In the end he gave Harry Reid his vote and Nebraska was given $100 million dollars but nothing was done for any other states. Oh, and also the DNC spent $500,000 on political ads for Nelson which ran in Nebraska even though he is not up for reelection again until 2012.
As Greta said, "It does look funny." And he had no answer to that. About ten minutes before that, as Greta slowly circled her quarry and kept poking at it, Nelson became more and more fidgety. It is really too bad about the fidgeting and on and off dumb act because he claims total innocense and rather high motives yet he acts like a guilty person: go figure.
I've never watched Greta much. But I had to admire her ability to have someone lie to her face and not take it at all personally. She just remaimed focused on getting the story as clearly as she could from Nelson. But there just isn't much story to be had from the senator. He was in these meetings but he sure does not know much of what happened and will not name any one else who participated besides Reid. He doesn't know much about the health care bill that he voted for. He claims to not know who wrote the bill. He does know and frequently reminds us that he had only the highest of motives. But he claims that much of the good he tried so hard to accomplish could not be included in the bill because there were deadlines that had to be met. He does admit that the deadlines were arbitrary. And he doesn't know or will not share exact knowledge of who created these deadlines. Which is too bad since there was so much good he wanted to do for all Americans if only he had not been kept from acting by arbitrary deadlines created and enforced by showdowy persons or forces. Oh well, at least this great and patriotic American got the $100 million for Nebraska and $500,000 for his own campaign chest.