Posted by: ST on February 8, 2010 at 9:08 am
The MSM, practically drowning in their own saliva, are tripping over themselves to report how Obama will soon convene a “healthcare summit” which involves himself and Democrat and Republican leaders. Via Politico:
President Barack Obama is planning to host a televised meeting with Republican and Democratic congressional leaders on health care reform.
The Feb. 25 meeting is an attempt to reach across the aisle but not a signal that the president plans to start over, as Republicans have demanded, a White House official said.
“I want to come back [after the Presidents Day congressional recess] and have a large meeting — Republicans and Democrats — to go through, systematically, all the best ideas that are out there and move it forward,” Obama said in an interview with Katie Couric during CBS’s Super Bowl pre-game show Sunday.
Obama said he wants to “look at the Republican ideas that are out there.”
“If we can go, step by step, through a series of these issues and arrive at some agreements, then, procedurally, there’s no reason why we can’t do it a lot faster the process took last year,” he said.
In a statement, the official said, “What the president will not do is let this moment slip away. He hopes to have Republican support in doing so — but he is going to move forward on health reform.”
[...]
But since the Democratic loss in the Massachusetts Senate race, Obama has been forced to rework his legislative strategy – both by striking a more bipartisan tone, and returning to his campaign pledge of providing more transparency. He’s been dogged by questions about why he failed to live up to his campaign promise of televising the health care negotiations on C-SPAN.
The half-day meeting will take place at Blair House, and be broadcast live, presumably by C-SPAN, making it the first televised White House meeting involving the president since a forum last March.
This is a joke. He’s had plenty of time over the last year to look over GOP ideas on heatlhcare reform but instead has taken every opportunity he can to lie about those ideas, suggesting that the GOP had no ideas, no plans, effectively painting them as not just the party of no ideas … but the party of “no.” His desire to host a broadcast of a “meeting of the Democrat and Republican minds” is just one more example of his penchant for exhibiting style and symbolism over substance. Sure, he promised during the campaign numerous times that he would open up healthcare reform negotiations on C-SPAN – but he didn’t say he was going to be a part of it. This “summit” would be better … but not much … if he kept his hands – and ego – out of it. His participation in the summit is designed solely to look like he genuinely “cares” about what the GOP thinks, and that he is “listening” to the American people on the issue, when in reality he doesn’t care what either thinks, and has said as much with his comments about him being content with being a one-term President as long as he can get his reform plan passed – in part by engaging in the same types of backroom deal-making (more here) he decried as a candidate for President, and as President.
The GOP, of course, has no choice but to go along with this latest farce, as calling it for what it is – nothing more than a “show summit” a la the “Beer Summit” – will make them look flip-floppy in the face of their constant complaints over the last couple of months about the lack of open, televised-on-CSPAN negotiations. So Obama will get to do what he does best: stand in front of a camera and deliver meaningless, empty rhetoric to his adoring masses in the MSM, which will translate into breathless, fluffy “commentary” on news program after news program about how this President has “recommitted” himself to the process of “transparency” and “open government” and “bipartisanship.”
Whether or not this transparently smoke and mirrors political move is smart politics by the WH will be decided at the ballot box come November. Let’s hope and pray that the GOP is aware of this and is able to utilize the “summit” broadcast to their advantage.
Odumba will trot out a series of sob stories that have little to do with the actual business of health insurance reform and more to do with blaming his own mess on the GOP. It will be a dog and pony show with the fawning media trying to “keep it civil”–meaning they expect the GOP to just shut up or ask staged, phoney questions. It is an ambush.
How’s this going to be a “summit” where he can “examine the ideas of the Republicans” if it is another lecture from the law-professor-in-chief?
Sounds more like an opportunity for him to adore himself and blame GWB some more. The advantage of it, though, is he won’t have the SCOTUS sitting right in front of him to diss without fear of immediate verbal reprisal.
The measure of arrogance is how much one adores oneself in relation to one’s ability to really be what one thinks one is. Obama’s arrogance is boundless.
We can only hope the Republicans come better prepared. Either way, the soundbites will only reflect Zero in the best light. Hope they have learned.
Another aspect of the political theater:
“Well you saw I invited GOP leaders and we tried to work things out, but they again said no.”
Obama’s hoping to make them “useful idiots” to continue this push.
ST says:
Only partly. It’s also to give him political cover for his failures.
You’re correct that he doesn’t give a damn about anything the GOP says on the issues (or the people either, for that matter). He’s determined to go ahead with the current Pelosi-Reid mess and force it on us no matter what.
And when it fails, he wants to be able to point to this “bipartisan” summit and claim everything was their idea, and it’s not his fault, and see, this is what happens when you get those evil Republicans involved. As in everything else, Obama needs to blame someone else for his errors. Republicans who go along with this ruse are setting themselves up for attacks later.
THe only way this will not be a runaway MSM triumph for obama is if the Republicans ask the all important follow up questions and rebuttal to obama’s bald faced lies as answers. Without it, obama gets to say or quote whatever meaningless or false statistic he wants, and the sound bite gets repeated over and over. The Reublicans better not get out manuevered.
Let’s hope that Paul Ryan’s Roadmap gets some coverage.
—-Why the HELL are the Republicans agreeing to this?
Why do they INSIST on living down to the “Stupid Party” label?
Another point from ST:
Just for a moment, can we put some historical context around that phrase, “the party of ‘No’”?
I would refer you to this document. Although Obama believes it to be “deeply flawed”, bear with me while I use it for a reference.
Amendment 1: Congress shall make NO law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Amendment 2: …the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall NOT be infringed.
Amendment 3: NO Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house…
Amendment 4: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall NOT be violated…
Amendment 5: NO person…shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Amendment 7: …NO fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.
Amendment 8: Excessive bail shall NOT be required…
Amendment 9: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall NOT be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment 10: The powers NOT delegated to the United States by the Constitution… nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Get the point? The entire Bill of Rights is one brilliant dissertation of NO. Having a limited government and individual freedoms means you need to say NO to those who want unlimited power concentrated in Washington, unlimited confiscatory taxation, and unlimited regulation. This whole country was founded on the very principle of saying NO to big government.
It’s about time someone in the GOP started embracing the phrase, and what it really means, instead of running way from it.
GWR,
Yep, the “party of no” label isn’t bad at all when you examine it closely, but the way Obama and his cohorts are framing it is to make the GOP look like the party of no ideas, and thus they are soley “obstructionists” who “want America to fail.” And sadly, there are few to no GOPrs willing to frame the argument via making the point that the opposition party is called the opposition party because, well, they’re supposed to oppose the ideas of other side because they don’t believe those ideas are good for the country.
Maybe McCain can make that argument for the GOP?
Bawahahahahahaha! Sorry, I forgot who I was referencing there.
Maybe when Obama presents an idea, proposal, agenda, etc., that doesn’t go directly in conflict with the Constitution, and can be argued on its legal merits instead of its unconstitutional violations, maybe then the opposition party will stop being the party of “no” and start being one with which he can work his supposed “bipartisanship” magic.
He also needs to learn that “bipartisanship” does not mean lapdogging like his fellow jackasses.
I don’t want America to fail. I want Him to fail.
November can’t come soon enough.
Instead of calling this a summit…I would like to call it going down into the pit! Would you go down to the gates of hell in order to tell the devil he is wrong and just to tell him you refuse to do his bidding? Well,that’s sort of what Obama expects of the Repbulican and he hopes they will all get burned! (by the MSM media)
As Great White Rat outlines..being oppositional does not mean you are being belligerant, it means you are standing up for less government involvement in the personal rights and lives of individuals and desecration of states rights. There are great ideas to REFORM health care…without spending Dollar One of the taxpayers. Of course, Obama has ignored this and downright lied and results to smearing anyone who opposes his mandate.