Occasionally the quote of the day comes from my Congressman, and that means something to me.

It's this, from Mark Pocan: "The whole day was a clusterfuck, right?"

Full quote: "The whole day was a clusterfuck, right? At the end of the day what we all want to do is get the president’s agenda done, and that’s what we’re going to do."

Quoted in "'Whole day was a clusterf---': Dems overcome distrust to send infrastructure bill to Biden/Democratic centrists and progressives reached a detente that cleared the $550 billion bipartisan legislation late Friday night and advanced their social spending package" (Politico)l

Why was the whole day a clusterfuck?

In the end, Pelosi only lost six Democrats on the infrastructure vote, all progressives.

Pocan is one of the progressives, and we're told that "helped negotiate the rapprochement with the moderates."

Thirteen Republicans voted in favor, giving Democrats more wiggle room on the floor.

The successful vote followed hours of painstaking negotiation between moderates and progressives that yielded a statement from caucus centrists committing to the party-line social safety net bill, if cost estimates met their projections. But the caveat in that centrist statement underscored the fragility of the underlying accord — House moderates are now staking their votes on an independent budget analysis that may take weeks to produce....

Despite the uncertainty, the centrists’ statement represents a significant detente between the Democratic caucus' two warring factions after months of ideological sparring that threatened to take Biden to the mat too -- despite Democrats having full control of Washington.

In a sign of how much trust has eroded, Congressional Progressive Caucus leader Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash) asked each of the centrists who signed the statement to look her in the eye as they committed both publicly and privately to vote for the broader spending deal after they’ve seen cost estimates, according to multiple Democrats familiar with the exchange.

She's just laying the groundwork for future rhetoric containing the phrase, "You looked me in the eye and...." I presume. I don't believe she could think politicians are the kind of people whose eyes betray them when they are lying.

Jayapal later addressed reporters outside on a wintry night...

The low temperature yesterday was 34° and we're in the middle of the fall, 7 weeks away from the winter solstice, so it's pretty silly to bring the weather into this melodramatic report. Now, I'm questioning what the standard is for "clusterfuck." I'm sure a Wisconsinite like Pocan wouldn't call that night "wintry," but what's the Wisconsin standard for "clusterfuck"? Legislators fleeing the territory while the capitol building is under seige?

Back to the Politico article:

While it’s all but certain the House will have to reckon with the social spending bill again after the Senate, Democratic leaders hope the deal Friday brings an end to their party's months-long internal standoff, which caused a string of embarrassments for leadership including two high-profile abandonments of votes after Biden visits to the Capitol.

By the time lawmakers gathered to vote around 10 p.m., tempers were running high as the House stood in recess while Democratic leaders worked to wrangle the few remaining progressive holdouts.

Rep. Brian Mast (D-Fla.) aggressively heckled Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-Calif.), shouting about a provision in a Democratic bill to hire more IRS enforcement. "You're an idiot," Carbajal shouted back at him as he walked away.

Before that a rowdy group of Republicans taunted Democrats by singing across the chamber floor a lyric synonymous with schoolyard defeat: "Na na na na, hey hey hey, goodbye." Democrats had mocked Republicans with the same chant in 2017, a year before the GOP lost the House after failing to repeal Obamacare....