Health Care BS

Fred Thompson, hoping to save congressional Republicans from another Lucy-and-the-football moment, offers the following advice to Republicans thinking about participating in Obama’s trap health reform summit:

Basically, what President Obama is asking you, is this: “Save me. Come up with a plan. Come up with a plan to reach my goals.”

He then points out what SHOULD be obvious:

If [congressional Republicans] go into a high profile, televised meeting in one of the President’s houses, Blair House … to talk about how they are going to work to achieve the details of his agenda, they are crazy.

What is his basis for that statement?

A full 70 percent of Americans say do nothing or start over. So with that in mind, “do nothing or start over” is the beginning of your negotiating situation.

So, what should the GOP say to POTUS?

Congress is in the first article of the Constitution. The Executive branch doesn’t make it until the second. So our suggestion is that you come over and visit us. We’ll decide who stands at the podium, and when and how you share the time. We’ll decide the agenda and who the cameras are on, and how we divide the time, and so on.

Obama will never, of course consent to such conditions. Why? Because his proposed summit has nothing to do with “bipartisanship” or “reaching across the aisle.” It’s a PR stunt. If Republicans play along, they lose.

UPDATE:

Not even CBS takes Obama’s sudden call for bipartisanship seriously. Ed Morrissey highlights a post in which Mark Knoller provides the following home truth:

When a sitting president calls for bipartisanship by the opposition – he really means surrender. And if they block his proposals, its ‘obstinacy.’

Pray that the Republicans don’t remain the only people inside the Beltway who fail to see this blindingly obvious fact.