From this day’s edition of the Morning Jolt:

Because Calling for a Bipartisan Summit Never Fails to Solve a Problem
Upon hearing of Obama’s call for a bipartisan summit on health care, my first instinct is that Team Obama is just trying to get a goose in their numbers – already down a new low, 44 percent, in Marist. He’s going to, what, chat with them on television for a few hours? A longer version of his Q-and-A at the House Republican retreat is going to be a game-changer, and suddenly make Americans like a bill they’ve grown to detest? Boy, this guy thinks he can speech-ify his way out of anything, huh? But apparently he’s serious.
Rush: “Let me remind my dear friends the Republicans: Obama does not have a plan. He has not presented a plan. He does not have his own sheaves of paper that he can throw out and say, “No, right here in my plan on page 2,940 it says you can keep your insurance plan.” There is no Obama plan. Negotiating with Obama is a waste of time. All it’s doing is helping him fulfill a photo-op promise of having this stuff televised, and it’s also to set you up as the reason this didn’t pass. Obamacare reality check: The Senate Democrats, the senators of “no,” cannot agree with the House Democrats. The House Democrats, the representatives of “no,” can’t agree with the Senate Democrats. What’s the result? Obama and the Democrats want to say Republicans are the party of “no.” And I’m here to tell you: wear that badge with pride and honor. Wear “The Party of ‘No’ to Democrat Health Care Reform as We Know it” as a badge of honor, and get out of the way of the support and campaign contributions that will flood your coffers.”
The initial response from GOP leaders is wary, with a list of questions. “Your answers to these critical questions will help determine whether this will be a truly open, bipartisan discussion or merely an intramural exercise before Democrats attempt to jam through a job-killing health care bill that the American people can’t afford and don’t support. ‘Bipartisanship’ is not writing proposals of your own behind closed doors, then unveiling them and demanding Republican support. Bipartisan ends require bipartisan means.These questions are also designed to try and make sense of the widening gap between the President’s rhetoric on bipartisanship and the reality.”
If the GOP does go forward with the idea, Tom Maguire lays out the playbook: “If Republicans choose to play along with this charade I suppose they can just hammer the abortion and “Cadillac tax” questions. Obama can get on national television and explain why we will or will not have Federally subsidized abortions. Then he can explain why the promise he made that people who like their health care can keep it is not compromised by the excise tax (which he derided during the campaign) and why loyally Democratic union members shouldn’t be subject to that tax like the rest of us. If the conversation lags, I suppose Republicans could come back to the individual mandate to buy insurance – there are endless clips from the campaign of Obama explaining why those mandates were unnecessary and a bad idea. Even if he has changed his mind, it does not seem that all of the independents who voted for him have. The guy who ran against the excise tax now supports it (maybe depending on whether Dems cross that bridge by Show Time). The guy who ran against individual mandates now support them. If Republicans want to help Obama stage a debate, maybe they could just re-read the things he said during the campaign.”
Jules Crittenden: “Obama’s half-day televised bipartisan makeup session sounds more like a gimmicky setup. Something between a Survivor Tribal Council and a Hail Mary pass. After that back-and-forth with GOP House newbies, he figured out he scores more points with vapid showiness than he does when he actually tries to accomplish something. The GOP would be well-advised to dismiss it for what it is and demand that the president approach serious matters seriously, rather than with a quickie reality TV session. Or better, just dismiss it as a gimmick, inform him the clock’s running out on that game already, and let him dangle through the mid-terms.”
At NRO, Stephen Spruiell notices liberals arguing simultaneously that Republicans have no real ideas for health care reform, and that the Democrats have already incorporated the GOP’s best ideas. And he lays out how they have a funny definition of “incorporate”: “Eliminating the tax exclusion for employer-provided health benefits is a good idea, but the Democrats can’t really do it — it would anger organized labor, which benefits from the preferential arrangement. So the Democrats’ Potemkin version — an excise tax that would effectively cap the value of employer-provided plans — would exempt unions. Allowing consumers to purchase insurance across state lines would reduce premiums, but it would weaken states’ power to regulate insurance companies. The Democrats’ Potemkin version — a provision allowing the formation of state compacts — is meaningless: Their bill would create a massive federal regulatory apparatus that would render state regulation obsolete!”