Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus’ office confirmed late Friday night that the Montana Democrat was carrying on an affair with his state office director, Melodee Hanes, when he nominated her to be U.S. attorney in Montana.

According to a source familiar with their relationship, Hanes and Baucus began their relationship in the summer of 2008 – nearly a year before Baucus and his wife, Wanda, divorced in April 2009. The Senator had informally separated from his wife in March 2008 and they were living apart when he began dating Hanes, according to Baucus’ office.

Hanes ended her employment with Baucus in the spring of this year.

Hanes, who is divorced and now lives with Baucus in the Eastern Market neighborhood of Washington, D.C., ultimately withdrew her name from consideration for the U.S. attorney position in order to move to Washington, and she now works in the Justice Department’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention as a counselor to the administrator.

Ugh. Good thing Baucus doesn’t have his hand in any major pieces of legislation. Oh wait.

Most Republicans have been deeply unhappy with the Democratic health care proposals so far, and Republicans on the Finance Committee were said to be bracing for two possibilities: a partisan proposal that they were going to oppose, or a bipartisan proposal that they were going to oppose.

(via)

The critical question is: Do we get bipartisan support sometime before we vote on the bill? And me guess is that we will,” he said. “It could be as late as voting on the bill, I just don’t know when. But I do think a decent number of Republicans will support it.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), on that same bill:

I don’t think that’s a package that very many Republicans will support

I wonder what Baucus thinks he knows about the GOP caucus that McConnell doesn’t, especially now that Baucus has produced a bill that even Democrats on his committee can’t support because it makes so many concessions to Republicans that it no longer contains the reform that Democrats want.

Meanwhile, you have Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the chief Republican negotiator of the “bipartisan” bill (and he’s hardly been gung-ho about compromise) saying that he won’t support any bill unless Democrats cede complete control and veto power over healthcare reform legislation to the GOP. And Grassley is supposed to be the most bipartisan Republican!

Someone needs to wake Max Baucus up from his bipartisan fantasy land and write a bill that provides real healthcare reform, and if Republicans don’t want to play ball (and they don’t), then so be it.

As one top Democrat told me, the fundamental problem is that Democrats “are being asked to support a bipartisan bill that doesn’t have bipartisan support.” The compromise without the cover.

– ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, on the “compromise” healthcare reform bill released today by Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT).

Given hardening Republican opposition to Congressional health care proposals, Democrats now say they see little chance of the minority’s cooperation in approving any overhaul, and are increasingly focused on drawing support for a final plan from within their own ranks.

Top Democrats said Tuesday that their go-it-alone view was being shaped by what they saw as Republicans’ purposely strident tone against health care legislation during this month’s Congressional recess, as well as remarks by leading Republicans that current proposals were flawed beyond repair.

Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, said the heated opposition was evidence that Republicans had made a political calculation to draw a line against any health care changes, the latest in a string of major administration proposals that Republicans have opposed.

“The Republican leadership,” Mr. Emanuel said, “has made a strategic decision that defeating President Obama’s health care proposal is more important for their political goals than solving the health insurance problems that Americans face every day.”

Not mentioned in this article, though, are Harry Reid and Max Baucus. They’re the ones who really need to put recognize that they can’t negotiate with Chuck Grassley because Grassley doesn’t want to negotiate.

• Your U.S. government finally came up with a program that everybody likes, the cash-for-clunkers program, so they are ending it for lack of funding. (WaPo)
• In addition to kinda being a wanker on healthcare reform, Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) is also not sure if he’ll vote for Sonia Sotomayor. (The Hill)
• Is Rick “The Hair” Perry a gay? The guys who programmed Kay Bailey Hutchison’s website think so! (Austin American-Statesman)
• Sarah Palin’s first event as not-Governor was going to be a speech at the national shrine to Republican Jesus, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, but now she is just not going. Mavericky! (CNN Political Ticker)

According to Democratic sources, Reid told Baucus that taxing health benefits and failing to include a strong government-run insurance option of some sort in his bill would cost 10 to 15 Democratic votes; Reid told Baucus it wasn’t worth securing the support of Grassley and at best a few additional Republicans.

Well it took a while, but I’m glad Sen. Reid has discovered that losing 15 votes in exchange for gaining 3 votes means having less votes at the end of the day. Three cheers for Harry Reid!