ObamaCare Kabuki Theater -- Well, What Happened ?

First of all, is this Bi-Partisan Debate: ?

President Obama spoke for 119 minutes, other Democrats for 114 minutes, and Congressional Republicans for 110 minutes. That's 233 minutes for Democrats, 110 minutes for Republicans.

I confess only to listening to O's and Lamar Alexander's opening statements in the background. The rest of this snoozefest, I leave to other pundits to decipher.

Here are a few reactions:

The consensus seems to be that the Democrats did not come off well, the Republican's did, and Obama was diminished by the whole silly thing.

The Democrats’ Mistake [Jay Nordlinger]

Let me try something out on you: This health-care summit was a bad idea for the Democrats for this reason: They have long benefited from a perception — a perception greatly abetted by the media: The Republicans don’t care about health care, they don’t know about health care, they are the Party of No. All the ideas and caring are on the Democratic side.It is not so, and it has never been so. And now everybody knows it.


The Summit So Far [Yuval Levin]

Things could surely change this afternoon, but so far it is hard to see how the Democrats are doing themselves anything but harm with the health-care summit.

Beyond particular observations about individual exchanges or moments I would say the morning’s session suggests three broad points. First, the Democrats appear to have no particular purpose in mind for this event. They’re not driving anywhere, or making a clear individual case, while Republicans clearly want to get across the point that we should scrap the current bills and start over in pursuit of a few incremental steps. The Democrats may have thought that simply putting the spotlight on Republicans when the subject is health care would make the GOP look bad. But Republicans so far seem prepared enough and focused enough to avoid that, and to make the Democrats look rather aimless by comparison.

Second, the Democrats are going to great lengths to argue that their bill incorporates some Republican ideas—by which they mean that it includes insurance exchanges and the like—suggesting that this means they are moving in the direction of Republicans and toward some middle ground. They fail to see (or to acknowledge) that while some similar mechanisms may be proposed by wonks on both sides, Republicans and Democrats in fact want to move in nearly opposite directions from our current health-care arrangements: Republicans toward a genuine individual market and Democrats toward a greater socialization of costs. That makes a great deal of what Obama and the Democrats said this morning basically meaningless. (This is a point I tried to argue more fully in this space a while back.)

Third, an important part of the Democrats’ problem is that Obama himself is their only star, and this format is not working for him. He certainly seems engaged and well informed (even given a few misstatements of fact, at least one of which John Kyl made very clear.) But he doesn’t seem like the President of the United States—more like a slightly cranky committee chairman or a patronizing professor who thinks that saying something is “a legitimate argument” is a way to avoid having an argument. He is diminished by the circumstances, he’s cranky and prickly when challenged, and he’s got no one to help him. The other Democrats around the table have been worse than unimpressive. The Republicans seem genuinely well-prepared, seem to have thought through the question of who should speak about what rather carefully, and several of them have done quite a good job making their case against the Democrats’ approach. If we were to judge by debating points, Republicans certainly won the morning handily.

It’s easy to dismiss all this by saying no one is watching anyway, but that’s not quite true. The purpose of this spectacle is not so much to move the public as to move Democratic members of Congress—to create some momentum that might last long enough to help wavering Democrats cast a very painful vote. That audience very likely is watching, and they are seeing their leadership fail to make a straightforward case for the Democratic approach to health care, or to respond to the most basic Republican objections about high costs, excessive spending, overregulation, and the effect of this plan on American families. They are managing to lose an argument about health care to Republican members of Congress—no mean feat.


Other Reactions:

Observer #1:
I cannot get over the President of the United States being a time keeper and moderator of this. These tasks seem to be beneath the office. AND he does not even appear to be able to keep control — they're already way over time, which seems to be his biggest concern. It's hard to believe he has done this to himself. In my mind, this has been a disaster for him. He continues to look professorly and cool and Rs look passionate and knowledgeable. To say nothing of the substance of the arguments . . .

Observer #2
watched portions of the summit, and a few things struck me:

- Paul Ryan was the star of the show, hands down.

- Obama still does not handle being questioned or refuted well. At all.

- It was more than a bit tiresome to hear people, mostly Democrats, keep wheeling out sob stories to try to make their point. That assumes a dishonest position - that the Republicans are advocating doing nothing, something they repeatedly refuted.

- It was also tiresome that every Republican felt the need to thank the President for inviting them. They should have just done it once.

- It was dismaying to see so many Republicans back off when Obama challenged them. For example, when the point was made that high-risk policies actually lead to more responsible use of health care, Obama first tossed out a strawman about moving Congress over to high-risk policies, then when it was firmly hit back to him, he tried to make the argument about how much money the Congressmen make. Yet the person doing the rebuttal (whose name I did not note) did not point out that Obama had framed the question, so the issue of Congressional pay was irrelevant. Nor did he hammer home his point about lower-income federal employees. It left Obama looking stronger even though he made no actual point on the issue.

- Why could nobody make the point about the CBO not being a "take it or leave it" authority? They rate bills based on the information given. Obviously, then, if the information given is bad, the rating is bad. This seemed an easy point to make, and only Ryan touched on it.
At the end of the day, what bugs me about this meeting is that it really won't change anyone's mind. The people who blindly worship Obama will come away saying that he 'held his own', even though he never discussed specifics and resorted to anecdotes and proven falsehoods many times, and - most damningly - never proved how his approach would fix anything. Those who have doubts about his approach were probably screaming at their TVs, as I was, as easy points were missed and opportunities lost.

Observer #3
Someone elsewhere said, and I agree, wouldn't it have been so much better for President Obama to have done this a year ago — and then several more times. Whether they were speaking to or past each other — and in truth there was some of both—every American could see it, and all sides, and attitudes. As is, about a year ago there was some 70+% for comprehensive health care reform. Now that number has flipped. Not very good politics from the White House—in fact that's nearly the definition of really bad politics.Best performance: Hard to say, truly I thought it odd how much conversation the President cut off. Wouldn't it have been so much better to see him really go back-and-forth with Paul Ryan and John Barrasso rather than allowing them to make a point, answer it, and then move on. We all could see the GOP members, whoever they were, when the President answered, had something to say in return. Heck, if he didn't think he had an answer, the President could have asked for another to engage in dialogue on any of the member's points. But for bringing his A game and then some, yes, Paul Ryan.