Obama's Summit Sideshow

Two items: First is the outstanding interview the Representative Michele Bachmann at the video. Plus, Kimberley Strassel, one of the best observers of congressional politics, at WSJ, "The Summit Sideshow: Democrats Still Face Big Political Challenges in Passing Health Legislation":

We now interrupt our previously scheduled health-care summit drama to take the nation back to the day after Scott Brown's Massachusetts's victory. Hoopla aside, the programming remains the same.

The thing to know about President Obama's health talkfest is that it had zero to do with Republicans or their ideas. The GOP came, it spiritedly debated, it left. The president never budged. He never intended to.

The Summit Show was designed by Democrats for Democrats, to give Mr. Obama an all-day stage to inspire and exhort his party to charge once more into the health fray. It's about "altering the political atmospherics," admitted one senior Democrat. Yet for all the talk of "jump-start," there's little to suggest the ugly politics of passage have changed.

The day after Mr. Brown's victory broke the majority's power, Democrats turned to New Strategy, Version 37, Part 12. It is now House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's job to pass the Senate's Christmas Eve bill. It is Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's job to pass retroactive "fixes" to that legislation through an unsightly "reconciliation" process that requires only 51 Senate votes.