Republicans squabble with White House over invitations to hyped-up health care summit

In a sign that Thursday’s much-hyped health care summit at the White House would amount to nothing more than a partisan grudge match, the Obama administration and congressional Republicans spent the last hours before the meeting squabbling over how many members of the minority party had been invited.

The White House on Wednesday evening sent out a schedule and list of the 38 lawmakers scheduled to attend the roughly six-hour meeting – all of which will be televised – and said Republican leaders “will designate one additional Republican member to attend.”

But an aide to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, told the Daily Caller that the GOP had “named our team in adherence with the chief of staff’s letter,” referencing a Feb. 12 missive that laid out the ground rules for the meeting.

And the office of House Minority Leader John Boehner, Ohio Republican, said they had been told by the White House they could not bring a House Republican, or a Republican governor as they wished to do.

“The White House told us directly we can’t invite another House member or a Governor. We’d certainly invite a Governor if we could,” said Boehner spokesman Kevin Smith.

The White House – which precipitated the dispute by adding Sen. Ron Wyden, Oregon Democrat, to the list of attendees on Wednesday afternoon – insisted they had told Republican leaders of both the Senate and House that they could bring an additional member from either chamber.

The petty fighting over technicalities threatened to derail any hopes that the meeting – which was already being widely dismissed by most observers as little more than political theater – would have even a hint of bipartisan cooperation.

House and Senate Republicans have been preparing for the session by coming together to conduct mock sessions, complete with briefing books, according to former Bush White House political adviser Karl Rove.

Symbolically, the marathon session on Thursday represents a beginning of sorts to what is assumed to be the final chapter, whatever the ultimate outcome, in the health care reform saga that began soon after Obama took office over a year ago.

Democrats are expected to try to move a bill through Congress in the coming weeks, most likely using a complicated and rarely used procedure called reconciliation which would allow them to pass a bill through the Senate with only 51 votes, instead of the 60-vote majority usually required to overcome a filibuster.