President Barack Obama spoke before House Republicans at their retreat in Baltimore today, and then took live, televised questions from them, in a debate that more resembled British Parliament than anything we have in the U.S. The quotes and stories coming out of the meeting are fascinating, and makes me wonder if our federal government wouldn’t benefit from this type of civil, intellectual confrontation if it occurred more often. For what it’s worth, this also must detract somewhat from the narrative by Obama critics that all he does is read from teleprompters.
Obama talking to Republicans about bipartisanship, quoted by Talking Points Memo, which also has video if you follow the link:
“So all I’m saying is, we’ve gotta close the gap a little bit between the rhetoric and the reality. I’m not suggesting that we’re gonna agree on everything, whether it’s on health care or energy or what have you. But if the way these issues are being presented by the Republicans is that this is some wild-eyed plot to impose huge government in every aspect of our lives, what happens is you guys don’t have a lot of room to negotiate with me. The fact is that many of you, if you voted with the administration on something, are politically vulnerable with your own base in your own party. You’ve given yourselves very little room to work in a bipartisan fashion because what you’ve told your constituents is this guy is doing all kinds of crazy stuff that’s gonna destroy America.”