At some point last night, after a Healthcare Reform celebration dinner that spanned three different establishments of fine dining, I got to reflecting on the Stupak charade. Boiled down to its essentials, here’s what Stupak did. He fabricated an issue entirely without merit, recruited a gang that couldn’t think straight, licked his pencil and wrote up a nice little ransom note, and then moved into the klieg lights and engaged in some real high-profile grandstanding for days, only to fold lamely at the end in exchange for what no one can really pretend with a straight face was any real concession at all.

And the damnedest thing, of course, is that that’s exactly what Stupak did back in November, when the House version of the heathcare bill came up for a vote.

In November, the face-saving non-concession Stupak embraced was an agreement that he would be allowed to bring up an abortion amendment for a vote, so that it could be duly voted down. Now, four and a half months later, he called off his charade in exchange for an agreement that President Obama “will sign an executive order stating, essentially, that the law will follow the law.”

So what’s the deal here? Is Stupak just stupid? Is he a charlatan exploiting the gullibility of a few easily-blinded, pro-life Democrats in the House to snatch some quality time in the political spotlight?

Or could he possibly be Nancy Pelosi‘s secret weapon, signing on to play the heavy in a well-conceived script designed to grease the healthcare bill through the House without the kind of ransom shenanigans we saw repeatedly in the Senate at the eleventh hour?

Back in December, first Joe Lieberman had his way with the Senate healthcare bill. Then, we had the Ben Nelson travesty. And, at that point, the question on everyone’s mind was: who’s going to show up with a ransom note next? And, being the principled gentlemen they are, it was not entirely out of the question that Nelson or Lieberman would show up in the ransom line again. (This paragraph was corrected Monday night.)

Of course, this kind of last-minute holding-to-ransom didn’t exactly come as a surprise to anyone. And just as anyone with an IQ exceeding their age could see it coming in the Senate, perhaps Pelosi and her advisers could see it easily happening in the House as well? It was, after all, abundantly clear that the vote on the healthcare bill was going to be pretty damn close.

So what ends up happening? In the crucial days just before the two critical House healthcare votes, Stupak enters stage right. Armed with a surefire hot-button issue, he steps confidently into the spotlight. And proceeds to suck up all the last-minute-hold-up oxygen. No room for anyone else to grandstand and push their own little ransom notes. And, each time, Stupak doesn’t relinquish the spotlight till the very last minute. Each time, Stupak’s last-minute cave results in passage of the bill. By a wafer-thin margin.

And Stupak’s well-scripted shenanigans don’t just crowd out other would-be for-profit obstructionists. They also allow the House Democratic leadership to twist the arm of every genuinely wavering Democrat. With Stupak-and-Stupakers sitting on the fence, and the vote count teetering so precariously right on the very edge of the magic number for passage, everyone could be easily brought to appreciate that now was the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party.

Without Stupak’s strategery, I’m really not sure if I would ever have got to enjoy my three-establishment celebration dinner. The only real question, I think, is: did Stupak achieve this inadvertently, or was it all an extremely well-conceived and scripted piece of political theater?