George Bernard Shaw On Mary Landrieu

[NOTE: This post has been UPDATED]

According to ABC News, Mary Landrieu (D, La) was paid $100 million (in the form of an earmark for Louisiana that Sen. Harry Reid inserted into his health care bill) for her support on health care.

If true, Sen. Landrieu will be cast forevermore as the justly skewed damsel in George Bernard Shaw’s famous observation:

the playwright George Bernard Shaw was overheard at a party to have said that anyone could be bought for a price. When a woman at the party disagreed, he asked her if she’d sleep with him for a million pounds. She replied that for a million pounds she very well might. But when he asked if she’d do it for ten shillings, she replied indignantly, “Certainly not! What do you think I am?” “We’ve already established what you are,” Shaw is reputed to have said. “Now we’re only haggling over price.”

UPDATE [22 Nov.]

“It’s a $300 million fix”!

This morning the Washington Post confirmed my analogy analysis.

On the eve of Saturday’s showdown in the Senate over health-care reform, Democratic leaders still hadn’t secured the support of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), one of the 60 votes needed to keep the legislation alive. The wavering lawmaker was offered a sweetener: at least $100 million in extra federal money for her home state.

And so it came to pass that Landrieu walked onto the Senate floor midafternoon Saturday to announce her aye vote — and to trumpet the financial “fix” she had arranged for Louisiana. “I am not going to be defensive,” she declared. “And it’s not a $100 million fix. It’s a $300 million fix.”