What is happening in DC with the health care debate is no different than having the Colts declared the winners of the Super Bowl.

Accusations abound that the Republicans in Congress are hypocrites for not accepting Obama’s call for a bipartisan meeting regarding health care. This meeting is to be conducted by President Obama. President Obama has stated that he would use the un-reconciled and conflicting US Senate health care bill and the US House of Representative health care bill as a basis for reaching the equivalent of a mediated consensus of a final health care plan that would be acceptable to both houses of Congress.

The Democrats have lost the health care debate. Rather than start over on a fair, open, and bipartisan playing field, the Democrat President is calling for new debate where the Democrat President controls all the shots and makes certain the President gets his way.

What if after the Super Bowl, one of the games leading up to Super Bowl had been challenged and in calling for a new super bowl game the odds had been stacked against the Saints by the NFL Commissioner?

The sports equivalent of what is happening in Washington DC would be the following: The Colts (Democrats) petition the NFL Commissioner Goodell (President Obama) to throw out the Vikings/Saints game. (For the sake of a valid comparison we will assume in this analogy that Goodell is a Colts fan, the equivalent of Obama being a Democrat.) The Colts claim there was excessive and illegal roughing of the Vikings’ quarterback. That said excessive physical contact was intentional and that the referees knowingly failed to call those fouls. Accordingly, the Saints’ (Republicans’) Super Bowl win needs to be invalidated and the playoff system needs to be revamped.

The public response would be immediate. With the exception of large pockets in Indiana and smatterings of Colts fans across the country the overwhelming majority of football fans would be outraged by the Colts actions and demand that traditional rules of NFL be followed and that the Saints keep their Super Bowl title.

To address the issues raised by the Colts’ (Democrats’) claims, Commissioner Goodell (Obama) elects not to discuss or uphold the referees, the rules, the playoff system, or even the Super Bowl. Rather the Commissioner calls a press conference and says that he will host a whole new game between the Saints (Republicans) and the Colts (Democrats,) but to make it fair the Saints will have to accept all the probable fouls that were not called in the Vikings/Saints game (“prior game fouls”).

The Commissioner assures everyone that he will be fair and impartial in deciding which Saints tackles of Brett Farve should have been called as fouls by the referees -- prior game fouls. Additionally Commissioner Goodell assures the public that he will be fair in deciding when and where in this whole new game, Goodell will impose the yard lossage for the prior game fouls.

Should the Saints accept such an offer?

Hell no.
 
The Saints won the Super Bowl. Why replay a game they have already won?  Who in their right mind would ever play a championship football game with a handicap?

In the NFL there are rules in place to challenge calls during the game – not after the game. The Commissioner has no place in interfering in the outcome of the games and has no power to do so. Even if it were possible to redo the Super Bowl, it would be a new and fair game; it would be impossible to fix the game with a preset handicap of yard lossage.

So why does President Obama think that Congress should be even less predictable and reliable than the NFL?

Why should the procedures of Congress be ignored?  What law says that as President he can dictate to any party or members of Congress what is to be legislated? What law says that as President he has the power to handicap any party?

Both the Senate health care bill and the Congress health care bill are dead. The Democrats do not have the votes to pass the bills. They did not have the votes before Scott Brown was elected.  Unlike the Colts, the Democrats in Congress couldn’t even get its team together for the equivalent of playing a game – a floor vote on a reconciled bill.

The reality of the health care debate is that the Democrats are the team that didn’t even show up at the Super Bowl game. They lost by default. Now, by and through President Obama, the Democrats are saying that the Super Bowl didn’t count and they are trying to rig the outcome of a “new game.”

The real difference between the Saints and the Republicans is that the Saints know that they won. We will see if the Republicans are smart enough to stay away from a fixed game.