Public Views on Health Care Overhaul Top Week’s News

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• JIM LEHRER:

  And to the analysis of Shields and Brooks, syndicated columnist Mark Shields, New York Times columnist David Brooks.

  David, how would you portray the saga of the health care debate on this Friday night?

• DAVID BROOKS:

  Well, the polls are still terrible. There's still a majority against it. So it's sort of an odd situation where you look in Washington, you see pretty much momentum toward it, slow compromises, and you see the Democrats having plenty of votes, but are we really going to pass the most major domestic reform in a generation when the majority of the American people are against it? That's sort of an oddity.

  And then the second thing, as we've seen in these highly reasoned town hall meetings around the country, is it's a pretty traditional left-right fight. You've got Republicans, you've got Democrats. And in the age of Obama, where we're supposed to rise above that, Obama has now got himself into a pretty traditional partisan battle, the health care version of the Bork hearings or the Thomas hearings or some other very hot partisan fight.

• JIM LEHRER:

  Is President Obama making any inroads in getting back his support?

• MARK SHIELDS:

  I think after…

• JIM LEHRER:

  Or getting it in the first place, I guess I should say?

• MARK SHIELDS:

  Well, I think, after a rough patch, I think that he — they had a pretty good week. I mean, I think that the argument that these town meetings, at least three out of four of them were reasoned events, that they weren't just brawls and pyridine fights…

• JIM LEHRER:

  People don't seem to be taking him on at these town meetings.

• MARK SHIELDS:

  Well, Bryce Harlow, who is just a brilliant man in Washington, who's worked for President Eisenhower, from President Nixon, President Ford, once said to me, he said, "I don't know care who it is." He said, "The most powerful committee chairmen, the most influential CEO, he says, Bryce, just give me five minutes with the president and, I'll tell you, I can turn him around."

  And he said, "I don't care who it is. You bring him into the presence of the president, especially in the Oval Office, and they end up walking out saying, 'Mr. President, God bless you. We're with you. You're doing a wonderful job.'"

  And I think it's a lot tougher to be confrontational with the president. In a strange way, I think the president needs it, because…

• JIM LEHRER:

  Needs to be picked on, you mean? You mean he needs to be confronted?

• MARK SHIELDS:

  He needs that moment. He needs that defining moment. The intensity and the passion are on the other side, are against it.

• David’s right:

  Four out of five Democrats endorse what the president is doing; 1 out of 10 Republicans does. Independents have slipped, and they've got to be won back.

  And I just think that it's — the president has to be — and what the problem is that his strength in the campaign — and David's touched on it — was that he was so reasoned, and so reflective, and so thoughtful, and not someone who appealed to emotions. But they need an emotionally defining moment, I think.