Making Sense of the Senate's Inside Game

Understanding the congressional committees is real inside baseball stuff. But it matters a lot who controls which committees. For example, the fact that Max Baucus is the chair of the Finance Committee is greatly complicating Obama's efforts to pass a health care reform bill. Now that Teddy Kennedy has passed on, the Senate is about to embark on a game of musical committee chairs. How it plays out will have consequences, so I want to run through it for you.