David Dayen has written an interesting post on the failure of the SAFE Banking Amendment and the failure of the organized progressive movement to rally behind it. Interestingly, Dayen disputes the interpretation advanced by fellow left-of-center blogger Jane Hamsher:

Jane claims that “the Kaufman “break up the banks” bill got drubbed tonight because it was perceived as a Democratic bill and the banks could work through the GOP to kill it, which gave the ConservaDems cover for opposing it too.” If this were true, there was never any reason to spend six months on a public option campaign, because Safe Banking was far more bipartisan and far more transformational. It may not have had bright shiny poll numbers that could be touted, but that would be because nobody ever tried to force it into the national conversation. We have a problem with financial behemoths that cannot be regulated. It’s at the root of everything we’ve seen in the economy in the last decade. If you’re not willing to fight that fight you’re not really willing to change anything.

My guess is that Dayen and I disagree on many things, but my sense is that while the Safe Banking Amendment was far from flawless — I’m still not convinced that size is as centrally important as the bill’s sponsors, and its intellectual architects Simon Johnson and James Kwak, believe — it did include a variety of other measures that would really would alleviate the TBTF problem, thus making it a pretty decent second best option. The fact that it attracted the support of three reliably conservative senators — Shelby, Ensign, and Coburn — suggests that this was a lost opportunity for the right. Now that the bulk of the Republican caucus has coalesced around the Dodd bill, plus trivial tweaks, Senate Republicans have left close observers scratching their heads: if this is the endgame, why fight back at all?