Today's game is "spot the liberal."
The folks in the White House just must be kicking themselves right now. They thought that coming out of Baltimore when the President went in and was mesmerizing and commanding in front of the House Republicans that he could do that again here today. That would revive health care and would change the public opinion about their health care bill and they can go on to victory. Just the opposite has happened.
Civility was the cool thing during the grand gathering, but the real purpose behind this televised event was cutthroat.
A Politico story by Mike Allen made that clear, reporting that according to a Democratic official the summit was meant to "give a face to gridlock, in the form of House and Senate Republicans."
But members of the opposition party may not have fully understood that they were stepping into Professor Obama's classroom, and that they were to be treated like his undisciplined students.
Obama controlled the microphone and the clock, and he used both skillfully to limit the Republicans' time, to rebut their arguments, and always to have the last word.
If you guessed Quote 3, you win! It's from The Washington Post's Dana Milbank, a political columnist, whose musings The Journal Gazette ran on Page 1 today as its main health summit news story. It was labled "analysis, though, so I guess they're covered.
