George Mitchell

Sen. Olympia Snowe describes a scene out of a Rockwell painting: With Washington crippled by a blizzard, President Barack Obama worked the week before Christmas with a fire roaring in the fireplace in the Oval Office. Outside the window, his daughters played in the snow with their dog.Inside, Snowe writes in a new book, she delivered sad news to the president, whom she described as gracious.The Maine Republican couldn't support Obama's health care overhaul because her ideas, solicited in more than a dozen calls and eight face-to-face meetings, were left out of the final bill. Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid wouldn't allow amendments. The bill passed on a straight party-line vote.In her book, the now-retired Snowe writes about her 34 years on Capitol Hill that she says went from a place where parties worked to forge compromise to today's obstructionist politics and partisanship. The parties, she says, have become more interested in making each other look bad and focusing on re-ele...

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