Not exactly the institutionalization of “question-time”, but a darn good idea – a live broadcast “Bipartisan Summit”.

The point of this summit would be to use as a starting point the bills that passed the House and Senate and, as President Obama says, “to go through systematically all the best ideas that are out there and move it forward,” (NYTimes, 2/7/10). That means unscripted, unedited health care reform negotiations will be aired on live TV.

Sounds like this is exactly what candidate Obama promised to do when he was elected (albeit it 1 year late). I, for one, think this is a major tool in Obama’s political arsenal that he should use more often. We saw the gains that Obama made following the State of the Union, with his 2 live q&a sessions with Congress, in terms re-framing the health care debate and his legislative agenda. Also, we saw the gains he has made in the polls. But more importantly, at the last crossroads of the health care debate, we the people will be let into the room – so this summit will have an inherently different quality than all other health care negotiations to date. No one who was involved with writing this legislation at any point thus far was brokering deals with the American news media looking over their shoulders, they were brokering these deals in closed rooms, bowing to the power of any single senator who happens to be positioned as that 60th vote. Snowe, Nelson, Lieberman – we know the crew. So what I am looking forward to the most is to be able to see these folks, the 60th vote crew, try and yield that inordinate amount of power while the American public is watching. My bet is that they won’t, that they can’t; but this will just reinforce how good candidate Obama’s idea really was. And how much of a shame it is to be employed so late in the game – literally the last possible moment it could have been used.