Today’s “Kabuki Theater”
In advance of this morning’s summit, I wanted to highlight a column from two weeks ago by the Washington Post’s Ruth Marcus. The liberal columnist—and a public supporter of the health reform bills—admitted that the President’s proposal for a summit on health care “was not really meant to be taken at face value” and that “to call [the summit] Kabuki is to insult the Japanese art form.” She also attacked then-Senator Obama for making his infamous C-SPAN pledge regarding health care, calling it a “cynical promise….Cynical, not naïve, because surely candidate Obama, even as he milked the applause line, didn’t really imagine the cameras would be rolling.”
Even Speaker Pelosi laughed when reminded of the President’s campaign promises regarding transparency. The question now becomes: Does the President agree with health reform advocates who have dubbed his maneuvers “cynical?” And with friends who are willing to publicly mock the sincerity of his campaign promises, how can President Obama criticize Republicans for “partisanship” in pointing out how his own actions have fallen far short of his rhetoric?
We will be providing more insights and analysis as today’s summit unfolds.