A late report from The New York Times synthesizes all the reporting about Harry Reid leaning toward including a public option (with an opt-out) in the Senate floor bill. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which has pushed Reid hard this week, responded, “Grassroots pressure is working, and we will continue to keep the pressure on until the insurance companies are defeated and a strong public option is passed into law.”

LATER UPDATE: That big meeting tonight with Obama and Senate leaders wrapped up at the White House, and Sen. Reid’s statement offered pretty much no information whatsoever, so I’m not posting it.

Apparently Max Baucus went running to the centrists as soon as he heard his precious Finance bill might be compromised. So Mr. “the public option can’t get 60 votes” is working his tail off… to make sure the public option can’t get 60 votes! Comical.

• Arlen Specter on The Ed Show today seemed pretty unfazed by Olympia Snowe’s threats to filibuster if a public option were included. “We have 60 votes without her that we can use to invoke cloture,” he said. Specter wouldn’t even agree that an opt-out is necessary for passage in the Senate.

• Last night in an online video chat with the site Calitics, San Francisco Mayor and CA gubernatorial candidate Gavin Newsom implored Congress and the White House, “do not abandon the public option… we all rhetorically believe in competition, so let’s actually do it.”

• Here are two good lawmakers just destroying their opponents rhetorically: Alan Grayson runs circles around Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) on the Constitution, and Sen. Al Franken destroys a witness on the topic of medical bankruptcies, which don’t exist in countries where they have universal health care.

• Sadly, one of Franken’s other accomplishments, the bill stopping defense contractors from preventing rape victims their day in court may get stripped out in conference. That’s just astonishing.

• T. Boone Pickens, eager to make Americans seem like imperialist jackasses, asserts a right to Iraqi oil based on the extreme cost of all those bombs we’ve dropped on them.

• Arnold Schwarzenegger is upset that he’s not a dictator. He’s really upset that he’s such a bad Governor that the courts have to constantly upbraid him for breaking the law. Stupid laws!

• Another poll shows a slight lead for Jon Corzine in NJ-Gov, basically within the margin of error.

• Seeing the Republican Governors Association hit Creigh Deeds for weakness and flip-flopping on opting out of the public option, I can’t help but agree with Chris Bowers that every election, in essence, is a base election, and Deeds has become so frightened of empowering his base that he’s completely lost them.

• Not that the Republicans are in the driver’s seat either – most of their base hates them, too.

• Michele Bachmann tells us that those retired Republicans who support health care reform are “non-pro-freedom”. I am totally non-pro-non-pro-non-freedom, myself.

• David Paterson is mad about the new pay cuts to top executives because it will cost his state tax dollars. Actually, half of the executives come from Michigan, no? Chrysler, GM, Chrysler Financial and GMAC?

• Matt Taibbi has a righteous rant on Obama, the financial industry, and drafting Elizabeth Warren for President. Good read.

• I apologize for not covering the important and relevant question of whether or not Obama is Nixon. Sadly, Matt Drudge is not my assignment editor. I haven’t introduced Jesse Jackson as Al Sharpton yet, however, so I’m keeping my head above water.

• And the headline of the day: “Man accused of horse-sex trouble — again”