Taylor Marsh – TaylorMarsh.com – News, Opinion and Weblog on Progressive Politics

What do you know. Ezra Klein finally gets it. Better late than never, though as long as it took it’s not very impressive.

On Sunday, John Boehner and Mitch McConnell responded to Barack Obama’s summit invitation by demanding Obama scrap the health-care reform bill entirely. This is the context for that demand. What they want isn’t a bill that incorporates their ideas. They’ve already got that. What they want is no bill at all. And that’s a hard position for the White House to compromise with.

Regardless of the obvious, Pres. Obama is going to re-engage by inviting Republicans to come into the room with their ideas on health care, with Kathleen Sebelius offering the following assessment, via HuffPo’s Sam Stein:

Sebelius said that the president views the bipartisan meeting as a needed pivot to move reform forward. Asked if he will expedite the legislative process following his various sit-downs with congressional Republicans, she replied: “I certainly think so. I think he sees this as a step to actually accelerating the process forward. He wants to move forward. He wants a bill at his desk and he sees this as kind of closing the loop and let’s go.” …

Once again, Obama’s people are assuming Republicans want to play along. That Pres. Obama has the clout or they care enough about his charm to join in. It’s certainly not his power to punish that bothers them.

Let’s come at this from another direction. What’s in it for Republicans if they do play the bipartisan game?

You got it. Nothing. They see it as handing Obama and the Democrats a win that goes into the FDR column of big domestic policies that have wedded people to Democrats through these issues. So, seriously, why would Republicans do anything that offers a headline like Obama’s bipartisan summit worked?

The only way Republicans will sign on is if Obama let’s them walk away with talking points they can use with the base, including but not exclusively Tea Partiers, who is eating them alive in a district near you.

Any bill out of that deliberation wouldn’t be worth having, which has been the Republican goal all along.

Everyone on the same scorecard now?

–updated–

The news came from his office, with more from the Washington Post. Chris Cilizza runs down the coming special election.

Congressman John Murtha Passes Away at Age 77

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Congressman John P. Murtha (PA-12) passed away peacefully this afternoon at 1:18 p.m. at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, VA. At his bedside was his family.

Murtha, 77, was Chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense.

First elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in February of 1974, Murtha dedicated his life to serving his country both in the military and in the halls of Congress. A former Marine, he became the first Vietnam War combat Veteran elected to the U.S. Congress.

This past Saturday, February 6, 2010, Murtha became Pennsylvania’s longest serving Member of Congress.

Back in 2006, I was involved in helping Rep. Murtha fight back against some of the most heinous swiftboating to be seen, prior to the Swift Boat Veterans, when Murtha stood up against further actions in Iraq. I joined Dave Johnson and James Cannon Boyce in “The Patriot Project” at the time, working diligently to fight back against what Republicans were doing. I was proud of our work, especially on Murtha. The man was a real war horse for the military. He was also an old time pol who was under scrutiny many times for his actions on getting contracts for his district in Pennsylvania. Murtha was one of the few people with the courage to go up against SecDef Gates on Afghanistan last September. No more troops was Murtha’s line and he never let up.

Blessings and meditations go out to his family, his staff and everyone he touched, which is a very long list.

The New York Times picks up on Obama’s interview with Katie Couric:

“I want to come back and have a large meeting, Republicans and Democrats, to go through systematically all the best ideas that are out there and move it forward,” Mr. Obama said in the interview from the White House Library.

Mr. Obama challenged Republicans to attend the meeting with their plans for lowering the cost of health insurance and expanding coverage to more than 30 million uninsured Americans. Republican leaders said they welcomed the opportunity and called on Democrats to start the debate from scratch, which the president said he would not do.

Democrats didn’t have to end up here. The solution was always a short list of health care specifics like portability, importation of drugs, anti-trust elements, as well as pre-existing condition exemptions as a stand alone beginning for health care.

The obvious already taking shape, as Steve Clemons cited yesterday, riffing off an important piece in FT last week. Though as I’ve stated a million times, the buck stops with Obama.

Because of the lack of Democratic leadership, which includes a lack of will to use reconciliation, but also the craftiness to pull together a bill that had a simple way forward, Republicans are in a tremendous position. It’s a political gift if they’re smart enough to accept it, though there’s no indication they’re willing to be opportunistic if it’s seen to benefit Obama. Though if you listened to “Morning Joe” this morning, an alternate universe if ever there was one today, Scarborough posited that Republicans were never offered a way into the debate, which is absolutely untrue.

This latest bipartisanship meeting is vintage David Plouffe, getting everyone in the room so that blame or credit is shared, with a new narrative able to be crafted afterward. But also showing his candidate in the light that got him elected, bipartisan Obama, the guy with no ideology. Not that has helped him so far, because leadership by its very nature requires a point of view and an ideological north so you have some place to begin, not to mention a passionate core people judge worth trusting, as they did during the election season. That is so way back when.

Steve Benen writes:

The White House seems to believe a) Republican ideas will look worse when evaluated closely; b) Democratic ideas will look much better when scrutinized; and c) when it comes to addressing the agreed-upon questions, the way forward will appear much clearer. Subjecting all of this to a transparent, bipartisan discussion may even make it significantly easier to present the package to the electorate.

Obama’s never made the argument that Benen posits, that “Republican ideas will look worse when evaluated closely.” Obama never will, as he doesn’t call out conservative ideology as being less than liberal ideas, in part because he doesn’t believe it. Pres. Obama simply wants a health care deal. A “win.”

Some still just do not understand or won’t accept the basic sincerity of Obama’s true political nature, which is always to craft a deal between two sides, no compass offered by the boss.

Whereas dealmaking is always part of the political process, leadership should begin it, starting with the reality that Democratic policy ideas on health care are better, because that’s a simple fact. The trick of the craft is to find Democratic ideals Republicans will buy. If they won’t, then pushing them through in a marketable way that voters can understand is actually giving them something better than what they’ve got. However, this requires passion on policy so voters can see it’s something worth accepting, instead of acquiescence for the sake of something hobbled together.

And as much as bipartisanship may save health care and give Obama his “win,” it also straps him into a kumbaya position, as you can’t offer a hand then get rough when Republicans won’t take it. Though that’s not a worry for Republicans who have never feared Obama’s leadership.

Besides, it’s not like the Republican base is up for it, with any nod to health care or the Democrats giving more ammunition to Tea Party candidates, who are already pressing Republicans hard.