‘Top Line’ — Obama’s GOP Courtship ‘All for Show’

ABC News’ Rick Klein reports: President Obama’s outreach to Republicans — particularly on health care — is frustrating some of his liberal supporters, who view such moves as a waste of time at this point of the presidency, when the GOP has made its outright opposition clear. We talked about that on ABC’s "Top Line" today with liberal blogger Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake.com, who today declared the Senate-passed health care bill “dead as a doornail.” "They’re all running to the right, which I don’t quite understand, because it’s the Democrats that have to turn out for them," Hamsher told us. "So you explain it to me, but I just don’t see a lot of movement. I think it’s sort of glacial." In that context, reaching out to the GOP isn’t likely to gain any votes for health care — but it will make clear that Republicans aren’t offering real solutions, Hamsher said. "I think that it’s actually a really good idea," she said. "I think he was very good last week or the week before at the Republican summit, and one of the big fictions that has happened all along that people keep perpetuating is that the Republicans haven’t been consulted in this. … So let’s do it in public where we’ll have the document of videotape so we can see that they’ve been consulted." Hamsher: "It’s all sort of for show, I think. But I think it does put an end to the lie that the Republicans haven’t been consulted." Watch the segment with Jane Hamsher HERE. We also checked in with the AP’s Liz Sidoti, who said the outreach to the GOP seems more about burnishing Obama’s own reelection chances than about helping Democrats win races this year. "I actually think that this is more about 2012 and this is more about the president and his legacy than it is about making sure that Democrats can get elected in 2010," Sidoti told us. Watch that portion of today’s "Top Line" HERE.