Meeting Of The Minds

I'm still not too thrilled with Obama's health care meeting on Feb. 25, I think he's wasting time he should be using to convince the Dems in Congress to pass the damn bill already.  But BooMan does have a point that the meeting being televised will allow a fair discussion of the plan, something the GOP has been lying about since day one.

The bottom line? The Republicans thought they had this health care bill whipped when they won the Massachusetts election and now they're getting nervous that the president is going to pull some kind of stunt at the last minute and save the day for the Democrats. Well, I hope so, too, but I don't write confusing posts about Little Big Horn and inviting the Republicans to join in the slaughter.

Now, as far as I am concerned, the virtue of this plan is that it will do a lot to expose the Republicans for what they are. But it won't convince any of them to vote for any health care bill of any kind. As far as I'm concerned, Rep. Joseph Cao and Sen. Olympia Snowe were the only Republican members of Congress who ever considered voting for a health bill, and Snowe's probably out of reach now. The problem is still Democrats who are looking at bleak re-elect numbers. They're spineless and stupid, and some are just corporate shills. So, this meeting has to address that problem more than it has to do anything else. I like the idea, even if the Republicans thinks discussing health care on teevee is a way to bore us to death. 

Maybe some public shaming will get the Dems moving. Lord knows appealing to their hearts, souls, and minds hasn't worked.  Maybe appealing to their egos will.  And again, just the idea of Obama actually using transparency in government is clearly making the Wingers really, real.y scared.  But they did this to themselves:  they complained the meetings weren't being televised openly, too many "back room Chicago style deals" (whatever that means) and that Obama wasn't giving them a forum for their "health care solutions."  Well now they have to put up or shut up.  And you can see they are clearly running for cover rather than having an open discussion where Democratic solutions and Republican ones are compared in front of the American people by the light of day.

If anyone can pull this off, it's Obama.  Still not thrilled, but it's a step forward.  My complaint is we need much more than just steps forward right now, but to finish the bill.  We'll see.