This Wednesday, the Senate voted 47-53 to block a ten-year freeze of cuts to Medicare payments given to doctors; the entire Republican conference, twelve Democrats and one independent voted in favor.

The vote itself isn’t what wins my attention this week, though — no, the winner this time around is Harry Reid, who blamed the American Medical Association for misleading the vote by telling him they could deliver 27 Republican votes on the legislation. That’s right; the Senate Majority Leader blamed a Senate vote on a lobbying group giving him the wrong information. He also wrongly named Jon Kyl (R-AZ) as a cosponsor of the legislation.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not naïve. Given how much power special interests and their lobbyists have over the legislative process in this country, I readily believe this is what happens most of the time. What makes me write about Harry Reid here — and I suspect it won’t be for the last time — is that, whatever the merits and demerits of the legislation being considered, blaming the AMA for what is essentially a vote-whipping failure is moronic, especially for a Senate Majority Leader with such a bad record of leadership, personal charisma, control over a conference and really any other skill you’d want a Senate Majority Leader to have.

If you’re wondering, the AMA countered that the 27 votes were for health care form in general, not the vote itself. While I’m not particularly inclined to believe the words of lobbyists, I have this weird feeling that in this instance they might be telling the truth. All of this leaves doctors with Medicare payment cuts, Harry Reid with egg on his face and the AMA smelling like a rose — and, it seems, none of us the wiser.