A must-read examination of the challenges facing Senate Finance Committee chair Max Baucus (D-MT) appears in today's Wall Street Journal. Baucus is currently playing a pivotal role in several significant issues, as we have noted, from AMT to S-CHIP, to the minimum wage small business tax, to the estate tax -- taking sometimes sharply ideologically inconsistent positions, harking back to his support for the 2001 Bush tax cuts, which "infuriated other Democrats." The piece also has this priceless perspective from his predecessor as Banking Committee chair, quotable Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), on the road ahead for the maverick from Montana. Baucus, he says: ... has it more difficult than what I had... Sometimes it's going to put him in the position of either compromising a lot on what his party expects of the Finance Committee or getting 60 votes. [But] I want to help him do, like he helped me.