Hypocrite: Senator Kent Conrad Wants It Both Ways On By Passing Filibuster For Socialized Medicine

There is a battle raging in Washington DC over the use of the budget reconciliation process, which is normally used strictly for budgeting matters, to by-pass the full debate and scrutiny of the Senate to pass nationalized health care that will put the government in charge of determining how much health care you deserve. Senator Kent Conrad, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, is at the nexis of this battle. Which puts him in a tough spot.
On one hand, Conrad is being pressured by Obama and the rest of the national liberals to let reconciliation happen. On the other hand, Conrad has a North Dakota constituency that didn’t vote for Obama and isn’t on board with his designs on health care. So what is Conrad to do?
Take a cue from Obama and say one thing while doing another. Here’s Kent Conrad telling Ed Schultz that he’s opposed to using reconciliation:

SCHULTZ: I know that you too [are opposed to] reconciliation. Is this at odds with most democrats? Break that down for us.
CONRAD: I can say this. In the conference committee, I was clearly outvoted. You had the Speaker of the House, the Majority Leader of the Senate, the President of the United States all believing that it should at least be an insurance policy.

Now here’s a news report indicating that Conrad voted for reconciliation:

Democrats say they doubt that the Senate will have to rely on reconciliation to pass healthcare reform.
“Most of the participants in healthcare negotiations have come to the conclusion that that is not the way to reform,” said Sen. Kent Conrad (D) of North Dakota, who chairs the Senate Budget Committee, after the vote.
Senator Conrad, on record opposing the use of reconciliation, nonetheless endorsed the package as a conferee. Challenged on the floor by Sen. Lamar Alexander (R) of Tennessee to explain that inconsistency, he said: “If I hadn’t agreed, I wouldn’t have been a conferee. There are higher powers around here.”

So Conrad’s excuse is that he’s just doing the bidding of the liberal masters of his party. And not, you know, the bidding of his actual constituents.
Doesn’t Conrad campaign, every six years, on the idea that he’s an experienced veteran in Washington DC who can influence the process on behalf of our little state? And yet here he is, voting against his own stated convictions because “higher powers” in Washington DC told him to.
Conrad’s a hack. Pure and simple.