Huh?

As you probably know, the president went on Super TV today and committed news -- he's inviting Congressional leaders to the White House for a health care summit.  For analysis, I don't have anything to add, at least for now, to what Ezra Kline and Jonathan Cohn say.  But today is Super Bowl Sunday, a day for frivolity (and apparently rampant misogyny, and I don't even want to think about that sad display during the halftime show...wait, where was I?  Oh yeah).

No, what struck me is the subhead that the New York Times -- that nytimes.com -- stuck on its story.  The story itself, and the headline, were fine.  But the subhead at the web site as I write this (is it called a subhead?  A teaser?  I don't know) reads:

The meeting would mark the first time in the long health care debate that leaders from both sides would be allowed to air their ideas publicly.

Well, if we narrow it down to times when leaders from both sides were in the same conversation (that is, ignoring all the times that Pelosi gave a press conference by herself), that would be true except for...the hearings and markups in five difference committees.  And the floor debate in the House.  And the floor debate in the Senate.  And other speeches in both the House and Senate.  And any time that leaders on both sides were interviewed together on TV, or radio, or whatever. 

Oh, and, the White House summit last year.

And if you really want to get literal about it, they've been "allowed" to air their ideas publicly whenever they wanted to.   But I suppose that's overkill.