The Health Care Summit

On February 27th, President Obama hosted congressional leaders for a health care summit. In advancement of it, Newt laid out his vision, both in a Time article and at the Conservative Political Action Conference, for how Republicans should handle it; many conservatives bashed him, with some wanting to boycott the event altogether. To them, even saying "bipartisanship" was treasonous; a member of redstate.com created a thread titled "Newt Gingrich is a freaking idiot." But Newt's idea of bipartisanship is much different than, say, Lindsay Graham's, which the critics did not understand.

Much of what the Republicans did at the summit -- list specifically what they had problems with and offer alternative solutions -- was what Newt advocated; he did not advocate for an agreement for the sake of a deal.

The Republicans came out looking so good, with even the mainstream media saying they had concrete proposals, that many who called for them to skip the event -- including radio hosts Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity -- admitted they were wrong; Limbaugh doing so just a few hours into the summit.

Those two did not viciously attack the former Speaker the way many online. And worse, none of them retracted their criticism of him after the fact that his strategy worked out very well. While the effort the Republicans put forth may not, in the end, stop health care reform from passing -- but it did stop the media from prattling on about the "party of no" and put a good face on the party.

Newt hosted a health care summit of his own -- much like he has had held his own job summits the same week as Obama's -- and filmed a recap of it.