Participants Spar Ahead Of Thursday’s Health Care Summit
(CBS)
If the beginning is a shadow of what is to come for President Obama’s hotly anticipated health care summit in Washington on Thursday, there is little chance that anything constructive or bipartisan comes out of the cross-party chat.
A day before the event kicks off at 10 AM sharp, both sides of the health care debate were taking shots at each other and the summit itself as fractious disagreement became the storyline. Democrats and Republicans not only cannot agree on health care legislation, they can’t even keep themselves from fighting over the guest list or even the shape and specifics set-up of the table (tables?) to be used at Blair House on Thursday.
There has been endless negative chatter from Republicans since the president announced the idea of a health care summit earlier thus month. The complaints have only increased in the days and hours before they sit with the president and congressional Democrats.
After voicing concern over the very idea, the live television cameras allowed into the room and the fact that President Obama released his own health care plan before his own summit, Republicans are now taking aim at the president’s list of invited guests. Republicans seized the initiative and demanded that they be allowed to bring select Republican governors to the conference as well as a special Democratic guest of their own in response to what they call unfair moves by the president.
Specifically, congressional Republicans attacked the decision by the White House to break their own rules for the event and invite two extra guests to the meeting, Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Republican Olympia Snowe of Maine, two moderates that have been deeply involved in crafting a bipartisan health care compromises and who were not scheduled to be brought along by their respective party leadership.
Wyden accepted, but Snowe deferred to the Senate GOP leadership’s decision to not invite her, a potential ally for Democrats on health care. This left Republicans with one extra invite to the event in order to match the additional Democrat. House GOP leader John Boehner decided to invite Democratic Congressman Bart Stupak, the proponent of strict abortion rights who has threatened to vote against a final health bill if his own pro-life language is not included in the Senate version used in the president’s new outline.
Despite a Stupak invite being out of the hands of the White House, Boehner condemned the president for failing to ask the Michigan Democrat to attend - without letting Stupak know - and demanded that he make the list for the summit, an event Boehner prematurely described as a failure that “millions of Americans are already deeply skeptical about.”
“I write today to respectfully ask that you invite Rep. Stupak to participate in the February 25 health care summit so that the will of the American people – and that of a bipartisan majority in the House – on the critical issue of life will be appropriately represented during the discussion.”
“Regrettably, millions of Americans are already deeply skeptical about the February 25 summit. They have noted with disappointment the decision by the White House to use the existing legislation as the starting point for the discussion – despite the fact that the current bills are opposed by a majority of the American people – rather than starting the discussion with a clean sheet of paper. They have noted with consternation the White House decision to exclude governors and state legislators representing states that will bear the heaviest burdens if the current legislation is enacted. Including Representative Stupak in the February 25 discussion, by contrast, would send a signal that the White House respects the views of a majority of Americans and a bipartisan majority of the House on the critical issue of life.”
House Republican control their own pick, and it was not clear yet if they will choose Stupak as their consensus choice for the extra seat at the open square table.
And that open square table is the source of another complaint from Republicans. The White House has already ceded the strongest image of presidential authority by agreeing to scrap a podium or other separate arrangement for Obama himself. Republicans could not accept a setting where the president would appear to be presiding over his opposition (even though he does). The compromise was to have a U-shaped table arrangement with congressional leaders of both parties alongside Obama and the White House contingent, including Vice President Biden. The remainder of both parties’ congressional attendees would be in seats in front of the main table.
This, too, brought loud GOP attacks that the White House was not cooperating sufficiently and relegating Republican legislators to a “kiddy table.” The White House nixed the U-table plan immediately.
The final arrangement (or not…) for Thursday’s summit is an “open square” table with a hollow center where every single invited guest will sit around for the entire discussion. Republican leadership demanded that they appear “equal” to the president in order to properly voice their concerns with his health care proposals.
McCain Courts Risk As He Slams Tea Party Challenger For Birther “Conspiracies”
John McCain is going viral and going negative in what is turning into a very bitter fight for his Senate seat on the Arizona Republican primary. Despite being his party’s 2008 presidential nominee, McCain is facing a battle for his political life with the burgeoning Tea Party movement and J.D. Hayworth, their favored candidate.
McCain has taken severe hits from conservative and the Hayworth campaign for his moderate political history and his very status as a Washington veteran. Despite winning the endorsement of most of the Republican establishment as well as conservative heroes Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin the self-proclaimed “maverick” is being forced to defend his conservative credentials in a year when the right-wing base and the new Tea Party movement has solidified their grasp on a significant amount of power with the GOP.
The McCain campaign blasted Hayworth’s identity as a creation of the conservative base and the Tea Party in a web video posted on Wednesday. The target of the attack ad is Hayworth’s connection to the “birther” conspiracy movement and public comments he has made voicing support for their accusation that Barack Obama is no a legal U.S. citizen and is not eligible to serve as President of the United States.
While Hayowrth has not fully endorsed the idea that Obama is an illegal alien, the McCain ad takes little notice and slams the Arizona conservative challenger for ignoring more important issues while courting favor with the Tea Party crowd.
“These are serious economic times, yet some are consumed by conspiracies,” the ad states.
The question raised in the wake of the ad is whether this helps McCain at all. He has clearly had trouble attracting the conservative support he needs to put away Hayworth for good, and the nature of the web video will not aid in that cause.
Multiplying the risk for McCain is the news that the Arizona state legislature is on the verge of adopting a statute specifically crafted by birther supporters that would force presidential candidates wishing to be on Arizona ballots to publicly release their original birth certificate documents, a measure aimed at the situation some have criticized President Obama for.
