Responding to criticism from the right, Ben Nelson took the floor and defended the sweetheart deal for Nebraska as a blow against unfunded and underfunded federal mandates. He explained that he wanted an opt-out or opt-in to the expansion of Medicaid, a policy that would have significantly damaged the health care bill and blown up the deal in the Democratic caucus. Failing that, Nelson says, he secured the ability for the federal government to pick up the cost of Nebraska’s expansion, in an attempt to let every state get the same deal. He added that, if his state Governor objected to the request, he would ditch it:

“I pointed out that within hours after the amendment was filed, my colleague from Nebraska objected to the inclusion of these funds. As a result, I’m prepared to ask that this provision be removed from the amendment in conference if it’s the governor’s desire,” Nelson said.

In other words, Nelson is saying that his sweetheart deal was not the deal he wanted, and he’d be happy to kill it.

It doesn’t seem like, given these facts, that the Republican prosecutorial grandstanding over the Nelson deal really holds much weight. And what Nelson argues for, and these prosecutors, if you stretch it out, is a federal takeover of Medicaid to provide citizens under it with the same benefits and the same protections. That’s not what they want, but it’s what animates their concerns with it.

I have said before that a Senator striking a deal to get more poor people health care is about the least objectionable deal imaginable. But this fight is really happening at a meta-level. Republicans are using the Nelson deal as a symptom of a corrupt process in Washington, one that President Obama, according to their reading, promised to sweep out.

The way Democrats secured the 60 votes needed to break a Republican filibuster of health care legislation has exposed them to accusations that they have abandoned the “reformist” platform that swept them into office.

No cameras were allowed in the room where the final bill was written. And legislative sweeteners were added to the product to win the support of wavering members [...]

In a withering address on the Senate floor on Sunday, Sen. John McCain accused the president and Democratic leadership in the Senate of abandoning pledges of accountability and transparency during the reform process.

Pointing to the deals cut with the pharmaceutical industry, the American Medical Association and others, the Arizona Republican insisted that Democrats had “set up a tent out front and put Persian rugs out in front of it” – greeting special interests with specific gifts.

Recalling President Obama’s campaign pledge to televise negotiations, McCain noted that “there has never been a C-SPAN camera” in the rooms where Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) crafted the final version of legislation. Drawing attention to some of the sweeteners that were put in the bill to win the support of conservative Democrats, McCain scoffed that there were now “new words in our lexicon,” including the “Cornhusker Kickback”, in reference to Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, and the newly recoined term “The Louisiana Purchase” in reference to concessions to that state’s Sen. Mary Landrieu.

It’s obvious to see the vulnerability among the White House and Democratic leaders on this issue. They campaigned in 2006 against the Republican culture of corruption, and Obama did indeed have a message of changing the ways of Washington during his Presidential run. You could find so many more deals – the drug industry one immediately comes to mind – more objectionable than getting money for poor people’s health care, but among Republicans, the idea that “somebody undeserving is getting something for nothing” probably animates longstanding resentments over these issues.

Obviously, Republicans are holding Democrats to a much higher standard than they themselves had when strong-arming whatever they wanted through Congress. Nevertheless, the “politics as usual” charge is strong, especially in the current political environment. And because of this vulnerability, Lawrence O’Donnell is not wrong to suggest that this bill could “give liberalism a bad name.” Democrats over-promised on process as much as they’ve over-promised on policy, and it’s coming back to hurt them.

In a story for The Daily Beast, I argued to Dana Goldstein that issues like this one (but not limited to it) are really hurting Democrat’s ability to step forward on many of their core issues, and that the left-wing populism we’re now seeing is an outgrowth of that.

“There is a growing sense of anger at the banks that caused this financial meltdown that led to the recession,” Dayen said. “We see signs of economic growth, but it’s not trickling down to the people. We’ve seen this populism manifest itself on the right with the tea party movement. It was only natural that you would see a populist movement emerge on the left as well, because of the accommodations that have been made for corporate interests, and not just in this bill.”

Ultimately, this is healthy, but only if Democrats learn from these mistakes. I’m not talking about Nelson’s compromise in particular, but the general sense that the powerful are getting far better deals than the people in the age of Obama.