Steele Criticizes Obama For Not Holding A Health Care Summit Last Year...Which He Did
Today on MSNBC's "Daily Rundown," RNC Chairman Michael Steele dismissed today's bipartisan health care summit as a "dog and pony show." The beleaguered chairman added that if President Obama was serious about working across the aisle, he should have started off the reform process with a bipartisan event last year. But, as hosts Chuck Todd and Savannah Guthrie quickly pointed out, Obama actually did hold a bipartisan summit last March:
STEELE: This whole dog and pony show that we're about to witness today is something that should have taken place a year ago, when the administration first came in last February and laid out its agenda for health care. This is how you should have started it - bipartisan, public forum, CSPAN, your cameras rolling to capture this and to capture, most importantly, what the American people want. And right now, they want us to start over, and I think we should.
TODD: Chairman Steele, in fairness to them, I mean, it was a year ago that they actually had a summit.
GUTHRIE: On March 5th.
TODD: And it wasn't just the legislative leaders. They brought in folks from the industry as well. And that one was televised. So...does that one not count? I'm just curious.
STEELE: Well, apparently it didn't. Because we don't have health care.
Watch:
Perhaps Steele's memory is fuzzy because on March 5th, when the summit was held, he was busy fending off calls for his resignation after a series of public gaffes.
Update: Matt Corley has more.
