The unusually-tinted Minority Leader of the House, John Boehner (R-OH) has been to the floor repeatedly today to try to extract promises from the Democrats managing the health insurance reform bill that if the Stupak amendment is adopted, they'll work to ensure that the amendment's language survives as a part of the final conference report. To their credit, no one has given that pledge.

And their reasoning has been sound. The fact is that nobody can really guarantee what will come out of a conference with the Senate. And that's not to mention the futility of trying to strike deals with an opportunist like Boehner.

But does Boehner have a point in insisting that the floor managers, who are the chairs of the three committees with jurisdiction over the bill, and therefore will likely be the main conferees in the part of the House, can speak with some authority on what's likely to happen in conference, and could even commit if they wanted to to voting in support of the House's official position on the amendment? Sure.

Does that entitle him to such a commitment