Excerpt
It was a unique insight into President Barack Obama's management style.
Obama dominated the debate during Thursday's nearly seven hour cross-party summit on healthcare, always in command not only of the room but also of the most intricate policy details, as he personally rebutted every point he disagreed with.
His tone was at times professorial, occasionally combative and at one point even dismissive of his 2008 rival for the presidency, Republican Senator John McCain.
"Let me just make this point, John, because we're not campaigning anymore," he told McCain. "The election's over."
"Well, I'm reminded of that every day," McCain replied.
It remains to be seen if the American public was more convinced by Obama's detailed exposition of policy or the Republicans' more visceral argument against an expansion of Washington's powers.
What is certain is that there was little progress toward generating a greater bipartisan consensus around a reform of the mammoth U.S. healthcare industry.
"There are some fundamental differences between us that we cannot paper over," Jon Kyl, the No. 2 Senate Republican, told Obama. "We do not agree about the fundamental question of who should be in charge."
Perhaps it was no surprise that there was little progress on Thursday. Democrats said there had already been more than 100 bipartisan meetings on healthcare since Obama came to power a year ago, yet the two sides seem to have drifted further apart than ever.
Arguably the event was more about trying to win popular support for Obama's healthcare plan -- and shoring up his own Democratic base -- than it was about bridging the ever widening gulf between America's two main parties over healthcare.
Convening nearly 40 lawmakers around a cramped square table in the Blair House guest quarters across from the White House, Obama was at his most schoolmasterly as he warned participants against turning the event into "political theater" or an exercise in pointscoring.
He was almost scornful of Republican Congressman Eric Cantor for sitting behind a copy of the 2,700-page Democratic legislation the Republicans say is overly complex and beholden to special interests.
"We don't care for this bill," Cantor said.
Obama accused him of using the pile of papers as "a prop".
"The truth of the matter," he added, "is that healthcare is very complicated."
After Obama's Summit, Any Minds or Votes Changed?
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