Today I followed some live bloggers, video feed, Twitter feeds and updates on the health care reform summit between select members of Congress and the Prez and VP. After about 8 hours, not much was accomplished except demonstrating, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Republicans have no interest in negotiation, bipartisanship, or participating in shaping the health care bill. Their mission is single-minded: kill the bill.
Why do they want to kill the bill? Well, not for the reasons they state: because it would raise taxes or the cost of health care premiums or cut Medicare. No, they want it to fail because if a bill passes that is met with increased good will and satisfaction by the American people, the Republicans are doomed to sitting second chair for another eight or ten years.
Every Republican representative chirped talking points. None were willing to concede any salient point. None had any solutions besides “tort reform”; none could even frame the debate in real terms. It was simply pointless. Why Obama bothered, I’ll never know. It was as if he said, after giving the Republicans umpteen chances to come to the table with some solutions, “I’m going to give you one absolutely last, final chance, no do-overs, and then I’m going to follow through this time!!!” And, like a recalcitrant teenager whose parents always cave, the Republicans defied him again.
Hopefully, Obama is a tougher parent than president.
“An incremental approach is like a swimmer who’s 50 feet offshore drowning and you throw him a 10 foot rope. And you say, well, it didn’t reach him but we’ll get it back and we’ll throw him a 20 foot rope next time. Then we’ll throw him a 30 foot and a 40 — by that time, the swimmer has drowned.” — Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/26/opinion/26brooks.html
David Effing Brooks wrote a p.o.s. column waiving off the possible passage of some sort of bill this year, which is good news since he’s always WRONG.
What I found interesting is that they cut off the comment section after only 14 comments. ha!
I’m not totally sure the effort was wasted; we’ll see if the Republican’s non-answers and non-solution sink in. Still, Obama has already given away the store, so I also wonder if “success” in this case is just more failure.