It's Process and Policies Mr. President

The President is going through his own twelve step program. He is now acknowledging he has a problem.

What I agree with is that the public has soured with the process that they saw
over the last year, I think that actually contaminates how they view the substance on the bills, I think it is important for all of these issues to be aired so that people have confidence before moving forward on such a significant part of the economy as health care, that there's complete transparency and all these issues have been adequate vetted and adequately debated

The president is right. The public had no use for the Cornhusker kickback, the Louisiana Purchase, and the fact that the major decisions were mad behind closed doors. Most people didn't notice but Scott Brown's campaign really took off the day after news of the Cornhusker kickback.

The president continues to refuse to wake up to reality, however. The public rejected his agenda long before the process became sour. The plethora of objections heard in townhalls in August weren't made because of the process. They were made because the public had rejected the substance of the bill.

In fact, the soured process is inextricably linked to the product. After all, if the bill were good, does anyone really think that all these Senators would need to be bribed? Sometimes, perfectly good bills are corrupted by such tactics. In this case, these tactics were necessary to get the bill passed.

There is still hope, however.

Signaling he'd meet critics part way on health care, President Barack Obama said
Tuesday he's willing to sign a bill even if it doesn't deliver everything he pursued through a year of grinding effort at risk of going down as a dismal failure.

The Democrats' massive health overhaul legislation is stalled in Congress by disagreements within the party and the loss last month of their 60th Senate vote, and with it, control of the agenda. Republicans suspect that Obama's invitation to a televised health care summit Feb. 25 is a thinly disguised political trap. On Tuesday, the president tried to change the dour dynamic, indicating he could settle for less in order to move ahead.

The problem was pretty simple. The president, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid are all uber liberals. They were in the lead in crafting the bill. Such a PROCESS lead to a liberal bill. When they couldn't get enough votes, moderates were bribed. The policy and process are one and the same.

If there's an open and bi partisan process for crafting the bill, the bill may in fact be open and bi partisan. First, the president must acknowledge that the tainted process lead to an atrocious bill and start over.