No fresh ideas sought

Following his televised health care forum "to try to hammer out a compromise with Republicans" Thursday, which Republican free-market ideas did President Obama agree to include in a new, "compromise" health care bill?

None, because he never intended to include GOP proposals in any truly new, "compromise" bill, at all.

"Every proposal that health care economists say will reduce health care costs, we've tried to adopt," the president said.

In fact, Democrats refuse to allow interstate commerce in health insurnce, and 258 House Democrats voted "No" last year on a substitute GOP plan that the Congressional Budget Office said would reduce costs by as much as 10 percent.

The president himself Thursday mentioned a cost-cutting option that he won't consider, stating -- sarcastically -- that he's sure drug costs could be reduced if we got rid of the FDA and returned to a judicially regulated free market.

The purpose of Thursday's health care forum, to Democrats, was either to paint Republicans as "The party of no ideas" if they declined to show up, or else to get Republicans to "compromise," meaning, "Shut up and vote for our bill."

Mr. Obama objected to the "theatrical" use of "props" Thursday. But the only "props" Republicans brought were copies of the Democrats' own 2,000-page bills, over the top of which Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., minority whip, peered out as he read repeatedly from the Democrats' own prescriptions.

Pursing his lips and shifting uncomfortably in his seat, Mr. Obama clearly was not happy at being called upon to defend specific clauses of his own bills. Instead, he repeatedly tried to shift the emphasis from specifics by complaining that these were mere "talking points. ... Unfortunately, over the course of the year ... this became a very ideological battle. ... And politics, I think, ended up trumping practical common sense."

Ah. So when the president misleads about abortion funding, about coverage for illegal aliens, about rationing, about the budget impact, and tries to hurriedly ram through a far-out, state-run health care system that's opposed by two-thirds of Americans, that's "practical common sense." But when Republicans unite to stop bad ideas being rushed into law without sufficient debate and consideration, that's mere "politics."

Got it.