When in Doubt, Posture

President Barack Obama – Barry to his closest friends – and fellow Democrats, who are 0-3 in the last three important elections around the country, including losing their filibuster-proof Senate majority with the election of Republican Scott Brown of Massachusetts, have had a bit of an epiphany recently.

Suddenly they seem more eager to “cooperate in the spirit of bipartisanship” with Republicans on Obama’s signature domestic issue, health care.

At least, that’s what they are saying, but be careful about jumping too quickly onto that band wagon.

Granted, what a difference a few election losses can make. Earlier this winter Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), were boasting about how they were prepared to ram controversial health care bills through Congress “with or without Republican help” because they had the majorities to do so. The message: Republican ideas not needed or wanted; we’ll handle this ourselves.

But then something happened. Americans spoke, and in regions of the country that have marched traditionally in lockstep for the Party of Bigger Government, Democrats were sent a message by some of their own voters who said, in essence, we’re not with you on this one.

Humbled (and angered) by the sudden loss of favor among once reliable electorates, party leaders have now resorted to fabrication in order to make it seem like they got the message. Last Sunday Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada even had the audacity not to hope but instead to tell reporters that Democrats “have promoted the pursuit of a bipartisan approach to health reform from day one.”

This was news to anyone with an IQ above 10 and who also owned a television or had access to the Internet over the past six months.

Reid is a lot of things but bipartisan isn’t one of them. Still, his monumental stretching of the truth is typical mojo for Democrats: When backed into a corner and when it doubt, posture. Tell a whopper. Make something up. The mainstream media will repeat it like lemmings and hopefully, ordinary Americans won’t be any wiser.

Only, ordinary Americans these days are much, much wiser, not only to the tactic but to Democratic priorities in general, one of which is a takeover of the nation’s health care industry, not high on the list of things Middle America wants its leaders in Washington to deal with.

Nevertheless, now comes Obama with his “offer” to reconcile competing health care reform measures with Republicans, in what is no doubt a calculated effort by the president to showcase not his intention to work with the GOP but rather to portray conservatives as obstructionist and out-of-touch with voters.

Already Obama has said he is not interested in “starting over” on a new bill and trashing a nearly 2,800-page health care measure backed by liberals, progressives and “Independents” who crave more power in Washington. Republican leaders have said unless the president is truly willing to do that, there is no sense presenting their ideas – again – only to have them ignored – again.

So what’s the point? Because the president believes just calling for this “bipartisan health care summit” is enough. He thinks good posturing – trying to “look presidential” and “even-handed” – will be enough for him to score political points.

The fact is if Obama was truly interested in vetting the best health care proposals and getting them inserted into a measure both parties would support, he would have enlisted Republican help long ago, well before being forced to do so politically, and real health care reform – if indeed it is even needed – would be law already.

Instead, Obama and Co. are proposing this phony “summit,” yet have set the tone by complaining that there hasn’t been enough “bipartisanship” already, automatically putting the onus on the GOP to produce some “workable solutions.”

For the record, Republicans have made proposals, contained in three separate bills since last summer. The other side, however, wasn’t interested.

The gridlock over health care reform occurred because Democrats who once held veto-proof majorities in both Houses of Congress didn’t think they needed Republican cooperation or support. What’s more, they didn’t want it.

And let’s never forget that Obama and the Democratic leadership are statists at heart. Their first love is government, which is why their initial “solution” to “fixing” the “health care crisis” was (and remains) to let Washington set the tone, make the rules and run the ship.

Recalling expensive, government-run, politicized health care disasters of the past, America said, “No, thanks.”

Which brings us now to Obama’s “offer” to reach a workable solution – which means, of course, workable only to him and the Democrats.

So let the posturing begin. And may the best ideas lose.

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