Obama: It's not about me, me, me, me, me

From NRO's Rich Lowry:

"Just checked in by phone with Sen. Bob Corker, the impressive Republican freshman from Tennessee, to see what he's making of the latest on health care and cap-and-trade.

"Corker says President Obama recently met with him, something he appreciates. But Corker doesn't think Obama "has his feet on the ground with regard to what appropriate health reform is." He adds, "And he personalizes everything, it's all, 'I, I, I.'" Corker suspects that for Obama "doing this with some massive bill is about politics . . . To him, it's about a political victory, not about doing what's in the long-term interest of citizens."

"Corker is stunned that the Finance Committee would consider taking hundreds of billions out of Medicare and not apply it to Medicare's own shortfalls. They're "taking Medicare savings and using it to leverage a whole new entitlement . . . It's like a Ponzi scheme." He thinks Obama's advocacy of a MedPac on steroids is really an argument for the folly of government-run health care, since it shows Congress can only ever add new benefits. "He's really saying that neither the legislative branch, nor he, have the ability to do things that need to be done in Medicare."