Byrd: The Guardian

Politico casts U.S. Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., as " guardian of Senate tradition" to count him among the 10 people "who'll help determine whether Democrats can get a (health care) reform bill through."

The piece cites Byrd's recent rebuttal, to an editorial in the Charleston Daily Mail, in which he gives "a qualified thumbs-up to using reconciliation to pass a package of fixes to the already approved Senate bill."

Calling him "a master of the Senate’s parliamentary maze" and "the fiercest Democratic critic of using reconciliation to pass the entire health care bill," Politico concludes that "Democrats must be careful, though, to play by Byrd’s rules when they craft a reconciliation bill, or the longest-serving senator could be their biggest headache."

Update: Political Wire also picks up on Byrd telling the newspaper "his views about budget reconciliation have been misinterpreted."