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>> You assert that if hc+stupak had been voted down then the only alternative for the House would have been to vote on whatever the Senate produced. But they can't vote on that - they only vote on bills brought up from the House itself. <<

That's just not true, as a matter of simple fact.

>> Sometimes you just copy the Senate bill and intro that, it gets voted on <<

Exactly, "it gets voted on".

>> and then there's a (usually pro-forma) re-vote on the compromise. <<

"usually" doesn't mean it has to be. That was explicitly the strategy openly publicized by the House pro-choicers: If the final bill came back from committee with Stupak language they'd all vote against it. All the Republicans were already promising to vote against it for other reasons, so that would've killed it. But it's no longer necessary, because the Senate voted Stupak down (as House members thought it likely would, and perhaps also due to some Senate votes shifting because of the threat from the House - exactly what they intended).

>> Since the House has to produce its own version of the bill somehow either it could have carbon-copied the Senate bill (not bloody likely) or gone back and re-drafted a bill without abortion restrictions. <<

Not true. Once the House voted it down, it would not have re-drafted. This bill already went through three House committees, a full debate and amendment process, and a full House vote. There's no way whatsoever that the House would've gone through all of that again this session. They would've been forced to vote up or down on the Senate version, and if they'd voted it down, it would've been the House's fault the Obama's top priority got killed, and he could try to get Congress to try again next year, when better results would be unlikely.

>> I don't think my calculus is any less of a political realist view than yours and I'm sort of annoyed that you keep insisting I don't get it. <<

Your calculus rests on a number of misconceptions (only some of which I addressed here). You in fact do not get it. That vote was the unequivocally correct vote for any public option or real health care reform supporter. That is why just about every strongly pro-choice Democrat in the House voted yes on that bill. The rare exceptions I was able to find, such as Dennis Kucinich and Eric Massa, had already said they were going to vote against the bill for other reasons (mainly that its public option doesn't go far enough) before the Stupak Amendment came up.

That is overwhelming evidence, IMO, that this isn't just a matter of differing calculus - you're just wrong on this.