It's just about a 100% certainty that the draft of the senate bill that goes out to the floor for a vote, first facing filibuster, will not include the public option.

That way, Lieberman, Baucus and the gang of Republicrats will have no excuse help prevent the GOP filibuster. There may even be Republicans who go along, like Olympia Snowe. They will have been given cover, allowed to only vote on a bill that met the criteria they "so boldly" set.

Once the bill gets into conference, the house and senate can get together and add the public option and it will only take 51 senate votes to pass. They might even try to pull out the anti-abortion amendment, since so many of them Bluedogs who voted for the house anti-abortion amendment failed to vote for the reform bill. That's far less likely.

The question is in the way Harry Reid handles this. Lieberman and Snowe understand all this. Will they vote to pass a bill without a public option, knowing that it may be added? That's going to be the big question.