Caught on Tape: GOP Wins Summit Showdown

Written by Henry Clay on Friday February 26, 2010

For months, Republicans ripped Democrats for the closed-door nature of their healthcare reform negotiations. Yesterday, Democrats threw the doors open for 6 hours. They would have been better off keeping them closed.

As others have already noted, yesterday was a good one for Republicans.  They came off as eminently reasonable and serious about addressing a genuine crisis in healthcare delivery.  The President, meanwhile, appeared small and unpresidential.

Let me add to the pile-on.

The sheer length and repetitiveness of the proceedings shined a spotlight on the calculated, and silly, strategery and messaging of the President and his party.

The President's Harvard Law School mediation class routine of repeating back a Republican point, announcing that it is in fact a "legitimate" opinion, and then suggesting a compromise that superficially incorporates that position gets real old, real quick.

Average people suffering through presidential imprimaturs for positions held by 50% of the American people no doubt were shouting at their TVs, No crap they're legitimate.  And not because they have your seal of approval.

Furthermore, this mediation posture ultimately fails because unlike a true mediator, the President is not an impartial arbiter.  He is the leader of one of the parties to the dispute, and he will ultimately present as a solution the liberalmost option on the table, in spite of the supposed legitimacy of the Republican alternatives.

As for his Democratic colleagues, anyone who has had the misfortune of attending a congressional hearing knows that Democrats love the victim witness.  Rather than bother with any discussion of policy or the law, the favored Democratic witness comes armed with a story of misfortune at the hand of [insert profit-making industry here].  As rifle-shot strategy, and in the relative obscurity of committee hearings, the calculated nature of this use and misuse of injured persons makes sense.  It certainly makes for good copy.  Today, however, when nearly every single Democrat who spoke opened with the story of a poor person harmed by the insurance industry, it came across as callous rather than compassionate.  Apparently, retail exploitation of injured citizens for political gain plays much better than wholesale.

For months, Republicans ripped Democrats for the closed-door nature of their healthcare reform negotiations.  Concluding after Massachusetts, that the only real opposition to healthcare reform was due to the lack of procedural transparency and backroom deals, Democrats threw the doors open yesterday for 6 hours.

They would have been better off keeping them closed.

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