GOP rep: Obama’s “bipartisan” bill has less substance than … “Jersey Shore”; Confirmed: Obama to endorse reconciliation tomorrow

Actually, he went even further than that. And if you’ve seen this clip, you know just how far he went. Good lord.

There are some insults, my friends, that even the left doesn’t deserve.

U.S. Representative Paul Broun, M.D. (GA-10) released the following statement after President Barack Obama announced his intentions to incorporate only four minor Republican ideas into the 2,000-plus page health care bill:

“I don’t know if we should be insulted or humored at the President’s feeble attempts to incorporate Republican ideas into his latest health care proposal. Snookie, from the Jersey Shore, has more substance than President Obama’s offer.

“Instead of listening to the American people, the President has once again demonstrated his arrogance and ignorance about what the nation expects from its leaders. This is “The Situation,” Mr. President: the American people do not want unconstitutional mandates and job-killing tax increases. They are concerned with the costs of premiums, the quality of their health care and ensuring their children and grandchildren are not left with the bill. If you want to govern with the consent of the governed, you need to scrap this government take-over plan and embrace more of our commonsense solutions that protect the vital patient/doctor relationship and decrease the costs of premiums without adding to the national debt.”

Cantor made the same point today, albeit sans guido flavor. Kudos to Broun for his shameless genius in choosing a metaphor that guaranteed every hack in the Beltway corridor (starting with yours truly) would be writing about his boilerplate press release tonight. Coming soon: Biden ruins the GOP’s attempt to obstruct reconciliation by summarily ruling their amendments out of order and then taunts McCain with, “That’s one shot, kid!”

Ah, who are we kidding? Even Slate knows this show’s getting canceled in the House. Estimated date that it’ll be placed on permanent hiatus: March 20.

Update: You’re in good hands, liberals.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi held an unexpected press conference today, where she acknowledged–unsurprisingly–that the divide between Democrats and Republicans on health care reform is unlikely to be bridged. But, when asked if and how she can cobble together the votes within her own caucus to pass a bill with controversial abortion and immigration language in it, Pelosi had no answers.

Update: I feel like that kid who got knocked out by Ronnie.

The president will outline the plan to pass the bill, including having the House of Representatives pass the Democratic Senate health care reform legislation as well as a second bill containing various “fixes.”

He will say that if Republicans refuse to allow and up or down vote in the Senate on the fixes to the bill, Democrats will use the reconciliation rules.

He will argue these rules are perfectly appropriate because the procedure is not being used for the whole bill, just for some fixes; because reconciliation rules are traditionally used for deficit reduction and health care reform will reduce the deficit; and because the reconciliation process has been used many times by Republicans for larger legislation such as the tax cuts pushed by President George W. Bush.

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