Is Kent Conrad For The Public Option Or Against It?

I’d say it doesn’t matter because the “health care co-ops” he does support are just the public option done a little bit differently, but check out this headline from the Fargo Forum:

Conrad still against public option

That sounds definitive, no? But check the first paragraph of the article:

Kent Conrad – North Dakota’s senior senator who’s been influential in the health care reform debate – refused to answer directly Tuesday whether he is willing to break party lines on the issue of a public health insurance option.
Conrad, a Democrat, joined his party’s majority in the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday to approve the latest health care reform proposal, which did not include the public option.
But the debate is far from over because a proposal previously passed by the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions contains the so-called public option.

So Conrad is refusing to answer whether or not he’ll end up supporting the public option. But the Forum is reporting him as opposed.
Fair. Balanced. Accurate. The Forum is none of these things.
Of course, this sort of hedging isn’t new for Conrad. Back in August he told a town hall in Carrington, ND that he wouldn’t support a public option (something dutifully reported by the Jamestown Sun) only to immediately flip-flop on the issue once liberal interests in Washington DC got wind of it.
Conrad, for all his bluster, will probably end up toeing the party line just like Obama and the rest of his party tells him too. Leaving us to wonder if all this mavericky stuff he’s been doing on health care was honest or just a bit of political theater staged for our benefit.