mr. ponnuru? to the question of republicans not negotiating for the first 18 months of his presidency. well, you know, look, they come , actually january of 2009, the republicans are pretty nervous about opposing president obama. he has just won, his popularity is really through the roof. republicans have really been pummeled in two back-to-back elections and then nancy pelosi and david obey, house democrats, basically write a stimulus bill with no input from republicans and jam it through. of course, they are going to start in an opposition mode when they are provoked in that way. negotiations,e nothing particularly significant was ever negotiated with the house republicans. know, i would have opposed this bill even if it included federal malpractice limits. but they didn't even do that. basically the obamacare -- the core design of obamacare, except for the public option, which had to go because of democratic opposition, not as much republican opposition -- this was presented as a sort of this w