What Snowe really wanted was ... more debate?

The New Republic has a running series about how health-care reform was ultimately passed in the form we got. Today is part four of the five-part epic, in which the publication reveals that despite hours upon hours of one-on-one conversations with Senate leaders and even President Obama, Olympia Snowe ultimately opposed the deal because it wasn't debated enough.

The article generously describes her as "famously deliberative" and goes on to talk about how much attention she had gotten from Montana Democratic senator Max Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, plus getting "blanketed" with White House attention, including meeting with Obama.

While her Republican colleagues were out on the public stage stalling the bill by spewing confusion and lies and objecting to everything, Snowe, it appears, was stalling by another means: talking her opponents to death.

Hard to say what the difference is, except that Snowe was behind the scenes and therefore less vilified for her obstructionism.