Handicapping today's health care summit, the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza makes this observation [emphasis added]:

With Democrats in charge of all levers of power in Washington, Republicans rarely get the sort of opportunity they have today to make their case and show their stuff to the American people.

I don't buy it.

Why? Because Fox News, the most-watched news cable news channel, is, to borrow the recent vernacular of Rep. Anthony Weiner, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican Party. Fox News is the broadcast arm of the Opposition Party, and GOP members of Congress, or least the leadership, appear to have carte blanche to the Fox News airwaves, right?

Well, over the last nine months, how much time have Republicans spent on Fox News spelling out their vision for health care reform? Republicans have done lots of whining about how the White House has locked them out of the process, and that all the really awesome health care reform ideas from the GOP side have been jettisoned. Republicans are quite serious they have their own health care reform plan, so why haven't they been touting it on television?

Raise your hand if you've seen a single Republican appear on Fox News in the last nine months who spent a large block of time seriously detailing what the GOP health care plan stands for. Cillizza at the Post claims today's televised summit is a rare chance for Republicans to explain their position. But that's not quite right because if Republicans really cared about making their position known (i.e. if they have a plan other than opposing Obama), they have access to Fox News and could appear every hour of every day of the week detailing GOP health care reform.

They could use Fox News to talk themselves blue in the face about health care, to the point where viewers could recite GOP talking points at will. So no, I don't think today's televised summit represents a rare chance for the GOP to talk about health care reform. Thanks to Fox News' open door policy, the GOP has that chance every day of the year. It's just that the GOP hasn't shown much interest in doing that.