Senators Mitch McConnell (r), John McCain (r), and Kit Bond (r) came to Kansas City on Monday for a closed (to the public) health care forum. They obviously weren’t too interested in fielding questions from teabaggers.

The coverage in today’s Kansas City Star was revealing. The dead trees headline in the Kansas City Edition, page B1:

HEALTH REFORM BLASTED IN KC: At Children’s Mercy, three GOP senators say say compromise with Democrats hasn’t been found

Online:

GOP senators criticize health care overhaul during forum in KC

By STEVE KRASKE

The Kansas City Star

….The Republicans said they also were miffed at Democrats for not doing enough to include them in ongoing negotiations.

“So far, there’s been no bipartisanship involved in reforming health care in America,” McCain complained….

[emphasis added]

Okay, just hold on a minute there. Senator Claire McCaskill (D) stated in Jefferson City (and at three other town halls I attended):

….[18:40] And the other thing you can do there, which might be interesting, ’cause you’re here and you obviously care very deeply, you might watch the live video, not live, it’s taped video, of all the the mark up sessions in the [Senate] bill. Fifty-two hours of mark up sessions on the bill. Thirteen Democrats, ten Republicans. There were a lot of amendments, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds that were written up. There were about two hundred that were considered. Of the two hundred amendments that were considered and adopted on this bill in this fifty-two hours a hundred and sixty-seven of them were sponsored by the Republican members of the committee and thirty-one of them were sponsored by the Democratic members of the committee. So, there was [applause], there were really a bipartisan [crowd shouting], the interesting thing [voice, shouting: “What happened to the other thirty (inaudible)?”] there really was a bi, and you can watch it. You can go on and watch it. You don’t have to read something that somebody else has written. You can go on and watch it live. You can see the Republican members offering the amendments. You can see the discussion. You can understand, maybe the, the thinking behind some of the amendments and why they were offering them. And it might be a way that you could see, face to face, what really happened in fifty-two hours of consideration on this bill, instead of some of the misinformation that’s gotten out there [19:57]….

“…Of the two hundred amendments that were considered and adopted on this bill in this fifty-two hours a hundred and sixty-seven of them were sponsored by the Republican members of the committee and thirty-one of them were sponsored by the Democratic members of the committee….”

Someone other than a stenographer might try to reconcile those competing statements.

The videos of the Senate bill mark ups are here:

Committee: Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions

Date: Wednesday, June 17 – Friday, June 26,

Place: SD-106 / SR-325…

Blogs exist because old media phones it in. And nature abhors a vacuum.