I know that health insurance corporations are bad for America and democracy but I did not think that the Washington Post’s publisher would be the flip side of the same coin.

Katharine Weymouth, the publisher of The Washington Post – one of the most powerful people in DC – invited top officials from the White House, the Cabinet and Congress to her home for an intimate, off-the-record dinner to discuss health care reform with some of her reporters and editors covering the story.

But CEOs and lobbyists from the health care industry were invited, too, provided they forked over $25,000 a head – or up to a quarter of a million if they want to sponsor a whole series of these cozy get-togethers. And what is the inducement offered? Nothing less, the invitation read, than “an exclusive opportunity to participate in the health-care reform debate among the select few who will get it done.”

Close door discussions eh? This reminds me of Cheney Energy Task Force.

“Spirited? Yes. Confrontational? No.” The invitation promises this private, intimate and off-the-record dinner is an extension “of The Washington Post brand of journalistic inquiry into the issues, a unique opportunity for stakeholders to hear and be heard.”

Let that sink in. In this case, the “stakeholders” in health care reform do not include the rabble – the folks across the country who actually need quality health care but can’t afford it. If any of them showed up at the kitchen door on the night of this little soiree, the bouncer would drop kick them beyond the Beltway.

Furthermore, we are trying to reform healthcare because of Aetna, Cigna, Humana, GHI, UnitedHealthcare, Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Phrma and et cetera. Yet on the question of confrontation we get an emphatic NO?!! I bet a public option would be the furthest thing from their minds! I mean I heard about this Wapo lobbyist dinner but I had no idea what was at stake. It’s been canceled but that doesn’t mean there won’t be forces that will aim to circumvent the nation and “get it done.”