Schooled

This was even better than his State of the Union Address this week. This is why I voted to elect Barack Hussein Obama as President of the United States of America:

At a moment when the country is as polarized as ever, Mr. Obama traveled to a House Republican retreat on Friday to try to break through the partisan logjam that has helped stall his legislative agenda. What ensued was a lively, robust debate between a president and the opposition party that rarely happens in the scripted world of American politics.

For an hour and 22 minutes, with the cameras rolling, they thrust and parried, confronting each other’s policies and politics while challenging each other to meet in the middle. Intense and vigorous, sometimes even pointed, the discussion nonetheless proved remarkably civil and substantive for a relentlessly bitter era, an airing of issues that both sides often say they need more of.

Let's just say it right here. Can anyone, anyone imagine "President W" ever doing something like this? Or President Cheney? Oh -- because they NEVER DID.

It's impossible to imagine the previous President believably saying he'd even read a proposal from the senior member of the Finance Committee if he was from the other party, as Obama makes clear that he has in the closing minutes of the exchange. In fact, if Bush had been given the one from his own party, it would have been distilled down into memo form, his preferred means of receiving written info. Which means he would be at the mercy of his handlers. Which means a threat to the Republic that simply does not exist under sentient President Obama.

Obama appears to be serious about bipartisan engagement, even taking some of the ideas, but without the typical Democratic urge to collapse and let the GOP have their gleeful way with them. If there is ever going to be a return to a more serious type of politics from the conservative side, of Republicans who actually want to substantively work together with Democrats to do "The Peoples' Business" instead of trying to placate teabaggers, win news cycles and get re-elected, it started here. And if that does come to pass they should thank this President. Profusely.

Here's the whole Q&A section (the opening speech was fine, but this is the juice):



The Republican reaction after this amazing experience of true interaction, alone, with the other party:

MSNBC's Luke Russert, who was on the scene in Baltimore, relayed that a Republican official and other GOP aides had confided to him that allowing the "cameras to roll like that" was a "mistake."

So effective was the president that Fox News cut away from the broadcast 20 minutes before it ended.

Wimps and wusses. Especially that fearful, bullying, dedicated television network of theirs.

As I read in a tweet somewhere out there, where are the GOP going to find somebody foolish enough to run against him in 2012?