The Republicans said it was a set-up, and that they were going to “crash” the party. After the fact, Huffington Post’s Ryan Grim reports that “For Mitch McConnell, it was a “a fabulous discussion.” For John Boehner, “a useful discussion.” I guess that’s a good start!
I actually thought it was better than I anticipated. President Obama proved, once again, that he has an amazing grasp on the issue… which makes his reluctance to stand up for single payer or a public option all the more infuriating. But he was quite impressive, as were a number of the Democrats who spoke. Most notably, Dick Durbin, Tom Harkin and even Nancy Pelosi. I’ll try to come back later and post some of the better video clips from the day.
I watched most of the seven hours of the talks, and followed along on twitter. And a couple of the people I re-tweeted most joined me to discuss what went on. The New Republic’s Jonathan Cohn, author of the book Sick: The Untold Story of America’s Health Care Crisis and the People who Pay the Price joined me at the top of the show, and was also pleasantly surprised at the substance of the day. FireDogLake’s David Dayen also weighed in with his thoughts on the summit.
And comedian John Fugelsang joined me in hour two to talk about the summit, plus other happenings in the news this week.
I’ll be off tomorrow night and for the weekend, but back with another show Monday, from 6-8pm ET… Radio or Not!