I have not had the chance yet to watch the six to seven hours of the Health Care Summit at Blair House, but I have seen excerpts of it online, and it is clear that some news media have painted President Obama’s participation in a very distorted manner!
According to Rush Limbaugh early yesterday afternoon, Obama had pursed lips and was angry at House Minority Whip Eric Cantor of Virginia, who read from portions of the congressional bills while having them stacked in front of his face to demonstrate the size in pages of the bills.
When John McCain complained about the unfairness of the bill to his constituents in Arizona as compared to Florida and other states, Obama was depicted in news reports as involved in an angry response to his former rival, declaring that the election was over, and it was time to do something on the issue of health reform for the American people, rather than harp on the process!
Having seen these excerpts, I fail to see the portrayal of Obama as anywhere near accurate!
Obama was simply making clear that the desire of the Republicans to destroy all of the many hours of work on health care would not be allowed to occur!
When one realizes that there were hundreds of briefings; dozens of caucus meetings; hundreds of hours of hearings; many weeks of markups in five committees; 25 days of consecutive Senate meetings in the month of December; sixty full hours of Senate debate after cloture was voted twice; and that it passed both Houses once already;–when is enough enough? It is time for action to cut down the unnecessary 45,000 deaths a year caused by lack of health care coverage for millions of Americans!
President Obama was simply being assertive and firm, and acting like a leader. This is his challenge to show leadership in a similar way that John F. Kennedy showed toward the steel industry in 1962; that Dwight D. Eisenhower demonstrated in the Little Rock intervention in 1957; that Lyndon Johnson made clear in the fight over the Civil Rights Act of 1964; and that many other Presidents who have been seen as successful have had to demonstrate!
The propaganda machine churns on, but it is clear that President Obama handled himself very well at the Health Care Summit, and that soon, the Democrats will move to final action on the Health Care Reform Act of 2010!