Racheting up efforts to call the GOP’s bluff on bipartisanship, Obama made a surprise announcement moments ago that he’ll be holding a summit of sorts with leading Republicans at the White House to discuss their ideas on health care reform — and possibly to move forward on legislation with them.
“They’re gonna be coming into the White House next week,” Obama told CBS’s Katie Couric moments ago, in a reference to Republicans, adding that they will be asked to “put their ideas on the table.” This meeting had already been announced.
But then Obama continued that after the recess, he would hold a second “large meeting” of “Republicans and Democrats” to see if there’s a way to find common ground on health care.
At this second meeting, Obama said, the White House, Dems, and Republicans would determine whether there was a bipartisan way forward on specific legislation. He said he wanted to “look at the Republican ideas that are out there” on lowering costs and insuring the 30 million uninsured.
“If we can go step by step through a series of these issues,” Obama said, then “procedurally there’s no reason why we can’t do it a lot faster than we did last year.”
But here's the key graf:
It’s possible, though, that this is all about laying the groundwork for pursuing a Dem-only reconciliation solution later. Such an effort, should it happen, will inevitably be portrayed as yet another partisan back-room effort to ram reform through. So perhaps the White House hopes a very public gesture of bipartisanship and transparency now will undercut those attacks and allow Dems to argue that they had no choice but to move forward alone.
Not that I am one to say I told you so (OK, maybe I am), but ... I told you so.
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