First Sen. Ben Nelson (D., Neb.) said the Cornhusker Kickback was just a “placeholder,” and that he planned on securing the same deal for all states or stripping the measure from the final bill. Now he says that his “compromise” on abortion language was never meant to make it. The senator was just waiting for the bill’s final pass through the Senate to swoop in and filibuster for the stronger Stupak amendment.

From an interview with LifeSiteNews via Wonk Room (emphasis in the original):

LSN: OK, so you were planning on coming back . . .
NELSON: Absolutely. That is what I was just trying to tell the gentleman who was arguing about the 60th vote.
LSN: What made you think that it had a shot, after conference?
NELSON: Because they needed 60 votes again.
LSN: Right, but before, you voted for it even without it –
NELSON: To get it there. . . . But, once it went to conference, as part of the conference, there was still another 60 vote threshold, and that is when I would have insisted and that is what Christy was talking about when I mentioned this on the phone – how we would approach this in conference to say, for my last 60th vote, it has to have Nelson/Hatch/Casey.
LSN: Why didn’t you stop it right then and there and say, “No Nelson/Hatch — nothing.”
NELSON: Because, at that point and time, the leverage wasn’t as strong — you have to play it [ . . . ]
LSN: So, if we got to conference and it was just the Nelson not the Nelson/Hatch/Casey — you would say ‘yes’ because you think it was good enough.
NELSON: I could have but I was going to say — and this was all the plan — that I would insist that it be Nelson/Hatch/Casey.

The senator said he planned to dramatically take the Senate floor, remove his Ben Nelson mask and reveal that he was none other than Henry Hyde himself.