“DEMOCRATS PREPARE TO GO IT ALONE ON OBAMACARE.”

[So] proclaimed the headline here at The Washington Examiner. These were appropriate verdicts if you viewed the summit as an attempt to reach bipartisan agreement or even a limited consensus.

But that of course was not why Barack Obama convened this unique colloquy. He did so as part of an attempt to pass some Democratic health care bill, somehow, through both houses of Congress -- and to discredit the Republicans who opposed the bills passed by the House in November and the Senate in December.

In that he seems to have failed.

One can hope, but today’s announcement of a Democrat attempt to push “mini-ObamaCare” through Congress by reconciliation seems to indicate the president hasn’t given up quite yet.