...you missed about half of this after they cut Obama off mid-sentence. I challenge all of you to spend an hour and a half watching this in earnest...Obama met with House GOP today and explained, in a much-too-polite way, that when you call centrist, pragmatic policies socialist Nazi power-grabs all day long, it makes it tough to have a serious conversation about the problems facing America.
Obama schools the House GOP
The GOP hasn't left itself any negotiating room, and that's why the debate is between centrist Democrats and more liberal voices. The Tea Partiers are no more shut out of the debate than the Naderites, because what you have is a centrist president and a Congress too busy gorging at the corporate trough to even admit that there are problems, let alone solve them.
I thought Obama did a pretty remarkable job during the State of the Union a couple of days ago. He demonstrated not only his awareness of the political situation he faces with a dysfunctional Congress, but also an optimism about the possibility of fixing America that, I confess, I am losing. I think Republicans are going to have to take a long look in the mirror, however, because the whole time they're claiming they've been shut out, entertainers like Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin have been making it increasingly difficult for rational voices to be heard.
This kind of format cuts right through that, and I suspect -- I hope, at least -- that it made some of the people in the room reconsider the stance toward Obama they've taken. As someone who has been disappointed with Obama, and particularly with the Democratic-controlled Congress, for not enacting more sweeping, progressive policy change, it has certainly given me greater insight into the kind of leader Obama wants to be.