Yesterday's Health Care Summit--
Today's Column Fodder

There was a lot written today about yesterday's summit. Here's a sampling.

The Blog at the WeeklyStandard.com: "Today in Health Care Reform," by Matthew Continetti.

The Democrats have a large majority in the House. Until a couple weeks ago, they had a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. Republicans have not stopped them from passing this legislation. A lack of internal Democratic support has. And at the moment, you do not see any House Democrats who voted No in November stepping forward to say they will vote Yes in the coming weeks.

Michelle Malkin, "Oba-Kabuki: A box-office bomb"

When he wasn’t cutting off Republicans who stuck to budget specifics and cited legislative page numbers and language instead of treacly, sob-story anecdotes involving dentures and gall stones, President Obama was filibustering the talk-a-thon away by invoking his daughters, rambling on about auto insurance, and sniping at former GOP presidential rival John McCain. “We’re not campaigning anymore,” lectured the perpetual campaigner-in-chief.

From the TimesOnline at the UK News, "Try to stay awake: the President has a healthcare Bill to pass"

Throughout all this, Obama, looking incongruously glamorous in a crisp white shirt and blue tie — like Jamie Foxx chairing a convention of Pittsburgh cement contractors — gave an Oscar-worthy performance as the Concerned Listener.

He listened with his chin raised and his eyes narrowed. His listened with his head resting quizzically in one hand. He listened while scribbling furiously in his notebook. Indeed, it was only when one of his own allies began to speak — the purple-suited Nancy Pelosi, famed for her left-wing politics and fondness for private jets — that Obama’s camera-talent abandoned him, and he allowed himself to be filmed with his middle finger creeping over his lips, as if urging Ms Pelosi to shut the hell up and take the next Gulfstream back to California.

Jonah Goldberg, "Health-Care Humdrum"

It reminded me of that old Monty Python skit where British soldiers are equipped with the world’s funniest joke, a joke so funny that even to hear it guarantees you’ll die laughing. The British army translates the gag into German (different translators for each word so as to prevent their own deaths) and has its troops read the German version as they march through Ardennes forest. Suddenly, Nazi soldiers start falling dead from the trees.

Substitute “boring” for “funny” and you’ll get a vague sense of how dull this summit was. At one point I could swear Mitch McConnell was counting fibers in the carpet just to stay awake.

From Rick Moran at American Thinker, "White House strategy backfires as GOP rules the summit"

Rep. Jack Ryan absolutely took the president to school on how idiotic his statements about health insurance reform cutting the cost of health care truly are. Ryan's 6 minute dissertation on the budget and deficits might be a little too wonky for most, but there is little doubt that this fellow knows his stuff backwards and forwards.

At The Daily Beast by Tunku Varadarajan, "What Was Obama Thinking?"

The marathon TV teach-in—in which Obama was more schoolmarm than president—should be regarded by Democrats as a great disappointment. They made no clear gain, and won no clear argument. It became apparent from the very beginning—when a testy Obama said “Let me finish, Lamar!” to the courtly Lamar Alexander—that this was not to be an open-minded exploration of the issues in question. It was, instead, a simulacrum of a debate, a pretend-conversation, one in which Obama established, yet again, his command over fact and detail, but in which he also revealed reflexive superciliousness, intolerance of different opinions, and a shortness of patience unbecoming of a president. (He also showed that he’s a tedious clock-Nazi, cutting people off all the time, while showing no inclination to edit himself.)

And last but not least, Charles Krauthammer: "Obama has given up the aura of the presidency"

He is so imperious and so self-confident, that he nonetheless acts as the arbiter of what's legitimate and what's not--he would be saying, well, "that's a talking point" and "that's a legitimate point." You know, if you win the presidency, [then] you win the White House, you win Air Force One, you get a personal chef, but you do not become the arbiter of legitimacy in American discourse, and that's what he appointed himself as.