What happens when the lights go on?

What happens when you turn on the lights in the kitchen late at night? The bugs go scurrying for cover. That is what happens.

And that is what is happening right now in Congress. Obama issues an invitation to both sides to sit down and seriously look at health insurance reform. He specifically invites the Republicans in Congress, while softly condemning the Pelosi gang for shutting them out. Sounds good, right?

Both sides immediately welcomed and condemned. The Democrats, apparently still incapable of responsible leadership immediately proclaimed they were not going to change anything. The GOP immediately demanded a fresh start to the process, scrapping even those things that both sides already agreed on.

In other words, the lovely folks that have pretty much trashed Congress through their excesses and abuses immediately accepted the call to bipartisan negotiation by condemning it to fail.

To be fair, the so-called "leadership" in the House of Representatives (Pelosi and Hoyer) did indeed shut Republican Representatives out of the process. This does give the GOP the right to be suspicious of Pelosi and company. However, they should have jumped at the opportunity to publicly propose their ideas. Sadly, that was not the reaction.

Then both sides in Congress reacted to the C-SPAN idea. Reacted poorly. Minority Leader John Boehner wants to know if he is walking into a trap, asking simply stupid questions like, "How big is the room?" and "Who else will be there?" and actually suggesting that he might not attend based on who else attends. He also decried the cameras as some kind of stunt. This is the same guy that just 2 weeks ago was screaming about the lack of transparency.

The Democrats? Well, they have made it clear that they have no intention of actually cooperating. They have made it clear that they are not going to change anything. And they definitely do not want the cameras to see just how they operate. I also suspect they do not want to have to defy the President of the United States in an open forum. After all, they might have to take responsibility for the mess they have created.

So, to the original question of what happens when the lights go on? What happens is the roaches run for cover. And, in this case, the roaches are Congress.