The big fight on Saturday

The Stupak amendment. But why did Republicans end up voting for a pro-life amendment that was so devastating to them politically? For months, after all, they had planned on making the 2010 campaign about Nancy Pelosi's government funded abortion. Now comes the inside story:

Pelosi wasn’t the only one getting pressure on the amendment. As rumors spread that Republicans might vote “present” in order to scuttle the entire bill, even Cardinal Francis George, archbishop of Chicago and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, called Republican leader John Boehner to make sure the GOP didn’t play any games with the Stupak amendment, sources said.