This sounds familiar...

Boy is this series of events starting to sound familiar. Obama: "The public option is not the most important thing." House Progressives: "The hell it isn't! We demand a public option." Max Baucus: "I'm not considering a public option, it will never have the votes to pass the Senate filibuster." House Progressives: "You better get off your ass and try old man! The House will refuse to pass anything that does not include a strong public option!" Harry Reid: "It's time to vote on a health care plan." House Progressives: "We are willing to compromise and deal on the public option. Who needs it? Why is everyone so worked up about it?"

Amid fresh signs that the White House is preparing to back a scaled-down health care overhaul that would only include a public insurance option as a fallback plan, several House liberals told Roll Call that they could support such a bill depending on how it was structured.

The “trigger” approach has been considered a deal-killer by liberals on and off Capitol Hill, and the willingness of some Congressional Progressive Caucus members to entertain it reflects a recognition that a bruising August recess has imperiled prospects for reform and redrawn expectations for what is possible.
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Liberals stressed that the shift does not amount to an abandonment of their commitment to a “robust” public insurance option. They said they would only support a trigger if that approach guaranteed the same access, quality and affordability.
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But while Progressive leaders have staked their caucus’s reputation on getting a strong public insurance option, vowing again and again that they will not cave, the rank and file aren’t necessarily holding the line.

Way to cave! Frankly I think that's the best way to go. I mean not for negotiations sake, it isn't. Signaling you're all ready to simultaneously turtle after months of "we shall not be moved" speeches is an awful way to negotiate. But in terms of softening the expectations of people who believed you, this is the way to go. It'll be less jarring and galling when you fully throw your support behind some version of the Baucus plan or some weak trigger public option that will never be triggered. But hell, any time you can cower in a corner and then accept something Howard Dean calls a "terrible idea", "fake public option", and can easily come up with several ways that a trigger will never be enacted and never help anyone, you've got to do it.

But thanks guys, for pretending that you were actually going ot stand up for something for a month or to. That must have been hard. You've now assumed your rightful position as 'getting led around by the nose by the conservative members of your party' even though you greatly outnumber them. Just one request: next time some important piece of legislation comes down the pike and the Ben Nelson's, Max Baucus', and Blue Dog Caucus leads the way yet again, don't wonder aloud why no one in the party listens to the liberals or progressives. This is why.