There was a point in the last comprehensive health care reform debate (The Great Hillarycare War) when the House Ways and Means Committee passed out its health care reform bill despite what was an obvious revolt in the country.

It was irrational political behavior. For about five minutes, the opponents of Hillarycare were stunned.

And then the opposition decided to pull out all the stops.

That moment in The Great Obamacare War arrived yesterday, when the Speaker of the House stood firm on the public option, essentially telling the White House to go pound sand.

In effect, Speaker Pelosi just called in an air-strike on her own position.

This is not going to be pretty.

It will likely cost her the Speakership. After the 2010 elections.

If the President of her own party cannot convince her to stand down, no one can, and so now, she has essentially subjected her own members to unrestricted (obviously, non-violent) political warfare by those who oppose the public plan option.

The Pelosi-Waxman Alliance on Cap and Trade and Health Care is politically killing the Democrats in the House, and by sticking with the Public Option, Speaker Pelosi is insuring the House bill will never pass the Senate, and the Senate will see Speaker Pelosi’s position as a reason why they should just let the bill die in the Senate. I mean, with the Public Option, its not going to pass the Senate anyway.

Mike Allen of Politico is reporting on the internal Democratic Party secondary explosions from the White Flag hoisted (a la Drudge) on the public plan option.

Where, oh where is MoveOn.org now? Have they spent all their health care money and the plan is still sinking? (Note the nearly straight line down in the graph.) Intrade now shows there is a 14% chance that a public plan option will be law by Dec. 31, 2009.

Dean said on the CBS Early Show that punting to another time and space may be the best option:

“You can’t really have reform without a public option,” Dean said on CBS News’s “The Early Show. “If you don’t want to have the public option, … just do a little insurance reform … and then we’ll tackle health reform another time. But let’s not pretend we’re doing reform without a public option.”

Then there is Jim Carville, always political, also cited by Allen in Politico:

On CNN’s “State of the Union,” Democratic strategist James Carville became the first leading Democrat to suggest publicly that there might be political advantage in letting Republicans “kill” health care.

“Put a bill out there, make them filibuster it, make them be what they are, the party of no,” Carville said. “Let them kill it. Let them kill it with the interest group money, then run against them. That’s what we ought to do.”

Carville was there for the HillaryCare flame out. And, when you are already planning to blame the Republicans for the coming health care failure, you have to be pretty clear about where the politics of continuing down this road will lead — so, it is natural for Carville to blame the Republicans.

In other words, let’s keep health care alive as a political issue that can win elections, even if we let, er, uh, I mean, blame the GOP for killing it dead.

These two leading Democrats, Carville and Dean, are really telegraphing warnings and caution to their elected Democratic friends: let’s wait, let’s not pass anything, we can blame the Republicans.

And one other thing let’s not have any more town hall meetings!