So the President (insert name of trick play) on Super Bowl Sunday, saying in an interview before the game that he wants to hold a summit on health care reform, where Democrats and Republicans join him in presenting their best ideas for a bill, live and on TV. He insisted this was not a reset button on the process, however:

“I want to come back and have a large meeting, Republicans and Democrats, to go through systematically all the best ideas that are out there and move it forward,” Mr. Obama said in the interview from the White House Library [...]

The idea for the bipartisan meeting, set for Feb. 25, was reached in recent weeks, aides said, as part of the White House strategy to intensify its push to engage Congressional Republicans in policy negotiations, share the burden of governing and put more scrutiny on Republican initiatives.

Mr. Obama’s announcement came after he surprised his rivals in late January by requesting that a session with House Republicans be open to cameras. That meeting produced a spirited 90-minute question-and-answer session with the president that many in the White House viewed as a critical success for Mr. Obama.

Both Democratic leaders in Congress welcomed the idea and agreed to attend. Both Republican leaders tried to position themselves by saying that the best way to handle the bill is to scrap it and start over, presumably with solely Republican ideas.

In a statement, House Republican leader John A. Boehner (Ohio) said that he looks forward to the discussion, and that he is “pleased that the White House finally seems interested in a real, bipartisan conversation on health care. . . . The best way to start on real, bipartisan reform would be to scrap those bills and focus on the kind of step-by-step improvements that will lower health care costs and expand access.”

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) said he welcomed “the opportunity to share ideas with the president,” adding that “we know there are a number of issues with bipartisan support that we can start with when the 2,700-page bill is put on the shelf.”

That’s the move they have here. Obviously this summit is an attempt to calm fears about the backroom dealing and the closed nature of the process (i.e., legislating). Seeking to capture lightning twice, Obama wants to bring both parties in and have them debate their ideas, which will show to the public that everything is occurring in an open and transparent way. This is of course the role Congress is supposed to play every day they’re in session, but C-SPAN has become more of a signifier for transparency than a channel people actually watch. A few minor tweaks would be made to accommodate Republican ideas, and then there would be a vote.

Boehner and McConnell understand that this is more theater than anything deliberative. It’s just a signal to the public that the political leadership has heard the concerns about process and wishes to allay those fears. It calls the Republican bluff about their willingness to govern and their desire to fix the broken health care system. So the only way they can achieve their goal here, which is to block anything the Democrats want (as is their role as the opposition party), is by securing a pledge that the bill which passed the House and Senate is dead. The White House is adamant that they are not starting over, that they want both sides to come with their respective plans and hash things out.

For these reasons, I doubt this actually happens. I don’t see the upside for Republicans to participate in an event designed to smooth passage of a Democratic health care bill. They may take a near-term hit for being hypocrites, desirous of transparency only when it suits them to bash the opposition, but the alternative result is contributing to the governing process. And they REALLY don’t want that.