It's Déjà vu All Over Again ……TARP and Blair House

As a surgeon, at least until ObamaCare goes into effect, I have been trained to dissect issues and results into their component parts. My current focus is on the similarities between the two biggest missed political opportunities over the past two years:

1. Senator McCain’s suspension of his campaign to fly back to D.C. to work out a “Bipartisan” solution to the TARP fiasco. By compromising his fiscal principles and NOT drawing a line in the sand….he lost the Public. It was the beginning of the end of his Presidential bid and opened the door for the election of Barrack Obama.
2. The attendance of Republican leadership ( the same leadership that supported the TARP fiasco above) at the recent” Bipartisan” Health Summit at Blair House. This smoke and mirrors event purported to compare Republican ideas with the dogma of Obama, Pelosi and Reid. The event confused and misled the public. By attending the event, Republicans snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in their opposition to the Obama’s use of our health care system to implement socialist reform.

Rather than being mesmerized by the “illusion” of Bipartisanship at Blair House, the GOP leadership should have walked past Blair House, marched to local clinics and hospitals, and listened to doctors, nurses and patients on the front line of health care. This could have sent a powerful message to every American and delivered a death blow to ObamaCare. The symbolism could have ended the debate once and for all. Picture this: the Democrats sequestered in a government building talking to themselves, versus The GOP hand in hand with The American People.

It should be noted that some Republicans opposed the Blair House meeting and were pushing for a grassroots frontal assault. Congressman Thad McCotter and a handful of other GOP members advocated for this action. I believe this approach would have brought victory to all who support Freedom and Liberty.

On March 14, 2009, New York Times published a profile of Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s Chief of Staff. Reporter Peter Baker quotes a “senior administration official” as stating that “Rahm thinks bipartisanship is a way to get what you want–to fake bipartisanship to get what you want.”

It is a formula which worked in September of 2008, when the Democrats sucked McCain into the fake “bipartisan” discussion, and then blamed the result on him, when he compromised his principles. This slight of hand led to Barrack Obama becoming President. It is the same formula which has led to passage of the most oppressive legislation in American history on March 21, 2010. As Yogi Berra said, “It is déjà vu all over again.” Hopefully, when The Obama Administration manufactures its next “bipartisan” event, the GOP leadership will meet it with sound principles and NOT bow to the “illusion of Bipartisanship.”