What doth it profit a man if he gain a Medicaid buyout but lose his table at the local pizzeria?

Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska is asking Senate leaders to eliminate a controversial Medicaid deal for his state in the health care bill…

Nelson’s been arguing ever since [he voted yes] that he never wanted a special deal for Nebraska and that he wants all states protected from burdensome new costs.

That didn’t quiet the controversy so Nelson took it one step further on Friday and asked for the deal to be withdrawn and replaced with a provision treating all states equally.

I spent a lot of time goofing on Lincoln, Bayh, et al. for not squeezing sweetheart deals of their own out of Reid, but given the total, utter, potentially career-ending clusterfark this has become for Nelson, it looks like they played things smart. Or at least, as smart as people who are facing career-ending votes of their own in the next few years can be.

As I’m writing this, news is breaking that yet another tree has fallen in the great Democratic forest. Farewell, Vic Snyder, newest casualty of the GOP’s smoke-and-mirrors midterm hype machine. Exit question: Is Nelson’s offer to give back his bribe a sign that he’s fully committed to ObamaCare and wants his hands as clean as possible when he votes yes? Or is it a sign that he’s wetting his pants over the backlash at home and is prepared to bolt if Scott Brown shocks the world?