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Last night, Senate Democrats continued their developing tradition of emerging from a closed door caucus meeting to announce they had reached a deal to pass a health care bill (their closed door breakthrough from the previous week having fallen apart). This time, the declaration of victory was based on Sen. Harry Reid – at the White House’s insistence – having conceded to Sen. Joe Lieberman’s demand to strip the bill of the ill-conceived Medicare Buy-In clause.

Did we miss something? Last time we checked, there were still several “moderate” Democrats expressing serious reservations over the bill. This so called agreement has thus far been conspicuously absent of any endorsement by some of the bill’s biggest Democratic critics: Sens. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Jim Webb (D-VA), Ben Nelson (D-NE), Kent Conrad (D-ND), or Byron Dorgan (D-ND).

Not to mention the fact there is no guarantee Sen. Reid has convinced any of the more liberal members of his caucus to go along with his new deal. Of the latest development, Sen. Russ Feingold sounded despondent, telling Politico “things are not moving in the right direction.”

Though it might be true that Sen. Lieberman “could not be happier” about being at “the center of everything,” the reality is “Joe Lieberman is the least of Harry Reid's problems.”