Steele Trap
by digby
C&L made a great catch:
STEELE: This whole dog and pony show that we’re about to witness today is something that should have taken place a year ago, when the administration first came in last February and laid out its agenda for health care. This is how you should have started it – bipartisan, public forum, CSPAN, your cameras rolling to capture this and to capture, most importantly, what the American people want. And right now, they want us to start over, and I think we should.
TODD: Chairman Steele, in fairness to them, I mean, it was a year ago that they actually had a summit.
GUTHRIE: On March 5th.
TODD: And it wasn’t just the legislative leaders. They brought in folks from the industry as well. And that one was televised. So…does that one not count? I’m just curious.
STEELE: Well, apparently it didn’t. Because we don’t have health care.
Ayeyayyay.
He has a point about us not having health care. But I think the bigger one is that holding these summits doesn’t automatically translate into legislation. And if they are dull and lifeless, they don’t translate into public persuasion either.
Perhaps today will be different, though. The gasbags seem to be fixated on McCain and Obama’s spat, but that might end up being a good thing if it illustrates hows batty and combative the Republicans are in contrast to the president.
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