Thanks to the White House’s excellent live streams of today’s health care summit, anyone could hear the remarks of senior members of Congress and administration aides as they discussed the political realities of the issue.
And I sat up straight in my chair once Rep. Joe Barton (TX), the senior Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, started speaking towards the end of his session. (Committee Chairman Henry Waxman [D-CA] was also in the room.) Barton began fairly predictably, remarking that “I don’t consider what happened in the ’90s to HillaryCare as a failure … The Clinton administration took a bunch of real smart people behind closed doors, presented a plan to Congress, and said ‘take it or leave it.’
Then he took it to an interesting place (emphasis mine):
This is a different approach. [Sen. Chuck] Grassley and [Sen. Max] Baucus working together in the Senate is great … we can get a different result. You can’t oppose the president’s principles. It’s in the details, though, and how you put the plan together. But this is a good step.
Caveat aside, that approach to President Obama is a long way from wanting him to fail. Here’s hoping Barton won’t have to apologize to Rush for his openness…
