GOP Still Opposed -- No Lie

Despite his threat to "call out" critics who distort his health-care plan, President Obama tried to rise above the usual Washington rancor Wednesday night in calling for a bipartisan compromise.

If the pundit world is any indication, that plea fell utterly flat. The critics didn't exactly shout "You lie!" -- well, some of them did -- but they pretty much trashed his speech to a joint session of Congress. If there's one commentator who disliked Obamacare before and is now rethinking that opposition, I've yet to find that person. Supporters, meanwhile, have described the address to Congress as somewhere between a home run and a grand slam.

The battle lines long ago hardened between the left and the right. In that sense, the commentariat accurately reflects the political gridlock that has gripped Washington for the past 15 years. You see it in the failure of the much-covered Gang of Six to produce anything. You see it when a joint session of Congress turns into a raucous town hall. And you see it when the opinion-mongers dig in their heels, which is what's happening in the speech's aftermath.

The president can take solace in a 14-point jump in public support, as measured by a quickie CNN poll: 67 percent support Obama's plan, and 29 percent are opposed. But Bill Clinton also got a big boost from his 1993 speech, and you remember what happened to Hillarycare. Such gains tend to be short-lived.

The real question is whether the Democrats' warring factions can come together behind a compromise plan. Few Republicans this side of Maine seem interested in voting for any Democratic version of the legislation. Obama can talk about forging consensus all he wants, but in the end he's got to get his party in line. If he's hoping that the pundits will join him in searching for a centrist solution, it's going to be a long wait.

As the NYT drolly put it, even as Obama invited some centrist Democrats to the White House, "if Mr. Obama picked up any Republican supporters beyond perhaps Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine, they were invisible and silent on Thursday."

Fox's lead naysayer, Karl Rove, expands his view in another company property, the Wall Street Journal:

"Mr. Obama accused critics of his health reforms of spreading 'lies' and said opponents want 'to do nothing.' These false charges do not reveal a spirit of bipartisanship nor do they create a foundation for dialogue. It is more like what you'd say if you are planning to jam through a bill without compromise. Which is exactly what Mr. Obama is about to attempt.

"Team Obama is essentially asking congressional Democrats to take a huge gamble. The White House is arguing that ramming through a controversial bill is safer for Democrats than not passing anything."

My sense is that the Dems have been more open to compromise than the Republicans were during the Rove years, but, to put it charitably, the two sides are just too far apart.

National Review tries to hang Obama with his own words:

"The president denounced 'scare tactics' -- in a speech that warned that failure to go along with his plans would cause people to die. He pretended that preventive care will 'save money,' even though this claim has been authoritatively and repeatedly debunked. He claimed, in defiance of every independent assessment, that the legislation before Congress will reduce costs. He denied that the legislation he supports will spend federal dollars on abortion, which can be true only if he has some private and novel definition of 'federal dollars.' He denied that it will cover illegal immigrants, even though Democratic congressmen have specifically voted not to require verification of legal residence. . . .