Obama's Caddyshack Summit (GOP Welcome 1:00 to 1:15)

I can't help but think of Caddyshack as Obama welcomes Republicans to his "health care summit" today. Just like the scene where the Country Club shows its appreciation to the caddies by allowing them to use the pool for fifteen minutes, Obama has graciously invited Republicans to present their ideas for a few hours after locking them out of the process for an entire year. Showing a total disregard for new ideas or a willingness to start over, the president went so far as to post his own bill before the meeting, which one expects he will spend the entire time defending rather than listening openly.

President Obama and his staff have been meeting in back rooms with Democrats for 300+ days, cutting deals left and right, but he doesn't want the American people to focus on that. He wants us to focus on the one day at the end of the process when Republicans were finally given an opportunity to share the stage, no matter how cosmetic. If the president truly wanted a bipartisan health care bill, he would have called this summit 300 days ago at the beginning of the process. But, of course, the president doesn't want that. He's going to ram his overreaching vision through despite the objections of the country and despite its highly partisan nature.

Let's call this photo-op what it is - an empty gesture designed to make Obama look like he's not the arrogant, tone deaf idealogue we've all come to know. The president likes to complain about political theater, yet here he is using Republicans as props in his version of an infomercial for a plan opposed by a majority of Americans.

There appears to be at least one big difference between ObamaCare and Caddyshack though. Obama and the Democrats aren't just leaving a Baby Ruth behind. Their state-run health care is a real stinking pile of you-know-what for the American people.