Evan Bayh’s not always the left’s favorite senator and stuff like this about how a climate and energy bill that’s been watered-down enough to make Rich Boucher (D-VA) happy may be too strong for Bayh is part of the reason:

Another senior aide said Waxman’s “pragmatic approach … will be appreciated in the Senate” but cautioned that the deal is unlikely to fully satisfy Senate moderates who are looking to temper the bill even more.

“Rick Boucher does not equal Evan Bayh does not equal Debbie Stabenow,” the senior Senate Democratic aide said of the Democratic Senators from Indiana and Michigan, respectively. Bayh and Stabenow have expressed reservations about cap-and-trade provisions, which would cap emissions and allow industries to trade for pollution permits.

Now that’s not Bayh speaking. And maybe the aide being quoted here doesn’t really speak for Bayh. I hope so. Representative Boucher isn’t anyone’s idea of a great progressive environmental hero. And it’s easy to understand why. He represents a coal-heavy Appalachian district that went 59 percent for John McCain. If the current version of the Waxman-Markey bill is a limb boucher can stand on, it’s a limb a Senator from a state Barack Obama carried can stand on. And of course if soi-disant “centrist” senators abandon what’s already a very centrist very moderate bill, then that cuts the limb out from under House Democrats like Boucher who’ve taken a stand in favor of doing something helpful to address the climate crisis.