The Elephant In The Room...

In an effort to save the world before bedtime, super-genius Barack Obama has decided that what the country really needs is a televised half-day workshop on health care reform. Given that this shit's been dragging on for about a year now, you'd think Obama and his crew might twig onto the idea that the public has made up it's mind on the issue, but evidently they are banking on the 15%-20% of the workforce without a job to take a break from the daytime soaps, tune in to CSPAN and get some old-time religion.

Sounds like a plan to me: A townhall meeting with no town to get in the way. Wonderful.

Anyway, dimwits like Washington Monthly's Steve Benen are all a-flutter:

OK, so Republicans want health care reform to be shaped entirely by their ideas. But would they tolerate a plan that includes some of their ideas? Apparently not -- the existing proposal already does that.

.....

So what's there to talk about on Feb. 25? If the summit is really about striking a new compromise, this would seemingly be pointless. But if the summit is about delving into these plans, exploring what is and isn't in the proposal, and making it clear for all to see that Republican ideas have been considered -- and in several instances, embraced -- the gathering has the potential to change public attitudes and score a key public-relations victory.

Indeed, I can imagine a scenario in which the president spells all of this out explicitly -- writing out which provisions are included that make Dems happy, which provisions are included (and excluded) that make Republicans happy, and declaring the whole package a triumph of bipartisan compromise. The GOP will still almost certainly balk, but the result will give Democrats cover and put Republican intransigence on full display.

This is the sort of stuff you end up writing when you start believing your own bullshit: Thinking that all can be solved by a "public relations victory". The elephant in the room - the one that the Steve Benens of the world simply refuse to acknowledge - is that the public has had nearly a year to examine the merits of health care reform as envisioned by Obama and the Democratics and they've decided they hate it.

This isn't about which "Republican" features have or haven't been encorporated into Obamacare.

This isn't about trying to con the public into believing the Senate bill is "bi-partisan" even without Republican support.

It's about the fact that the citizenry hates the Senate bill.

It's about the fact that the citizenry hates the House bill.

Nor is it about "Republican intransigence". In fact, given just how many in the electorate hate Obamacare, it's hard to find fault with intransigence of this sort... It seems to be reflecting the will of the people!

So to the Steve Benens and Ezra Kleins of the world, you just keep on plugging away, pretending that this is all about Republican intrasigence and Republican nihilism and Republican whatever. Shitty little half-day workshops on CSPAN aren't going to get Obamacare anywhere with anyone. Don't believe me? Count the number of Democrats in the Senate who have come forward praising this plan as "brilliant".

I rest my case.

Comments

[Allen]

I wonder if anyone has taken the time to tell him about the dead horse and the beating thereof.

Then again, this might be a novel idea. Just think, Obama will be the first President ever, to explain in detail that all the people's worst fears about a bill are indeed true.

[kansas]

My local liberal rag trumpeted that Obama is seeking "bipartisan" input, in spite of the fact he has been saying that and not doing for a year now, and that he had now "called out the Republicans" as opposed to simply admitting he has been lying all this time.

On a happier note, I understand John Murtha is still dead, but I worry that won't stop him from being elected in November.

[just passin by]

Murtha never backed off from his slander of the Marines at Haditha, since acquitted. Let the Devil have him.