Liberals are mad at Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) for crafting health care legislation in the Senate Finance Committee that does not include a public option. Liberals are also mad at Baucus for refusing to cut Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) out of the Gang of Six’s negotiations, even after Grassley called President Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “intellectually dishonest,” which was after he already said that Americans should fear that the government will “pull the plug on grandma.”

Liberals are mad at Baucus and Grassley, but do they know that Grassley killed the public option?

The Associated Press reported last night:

“Sen. Charles Grassley, a key Republican negotiator on health care, was on a winning streak as Congress recessed for August, having wrung important concessions from Democrats, including an agreement to back away from a government plan to compete with private insurers.

If you read AP’s story and didn’t scream “Damn you Chuck Grassley!” that’s because the fact he bears responsibility for the exclusion of a public option was added as a correction.

We’ve assumed all along that Grassley was negotiating in bad faith and tampering with the Finance Committee’s legislation. I don’t think we knew that he would destroy it.

Grassley’s not going to vote for the bill, but he doesn’t want to quit now! He wants to keep working with Dems. Awesome.