He bobbed, he weaved, he rope-a-doped their jabs--and then he delivered a couple of haymakers of his own. It was a boffo performance by the President. Fox News, first reduced to talking over his answers, wound up cutting away entirely. They threw in the towel in the 8th round.
Obama snookered them before he even arrived. The meeting was already scheduled, but, at the White House's suggestion, the Republicans agreed to have the event televised, a mistake they surely will not make again.
Most of the questions seemed more like speeches. Work in all the regular themes--tax cuts, reduce big government--pose them to the President, then take credit back home for "standing up to Washington." The GOP members appeared to think that the recitation of "talking points" would be sufficient to rock the President back on his heels. As it turned out, Obama responded with respect, then rebuttal, and, in some cases, a blistering rebuke.
This is the problem with insularity. When you speak only to people who agree with you, after awhile your arguments get lax and turn into incantations. All the people you know cheer these incantations, and never is heard a discouraging word. You come to believe that the incantation itself is the argument. It works in your world, and you are surprised when others find it wanting.
Biblical fundamentalists, for example, almost never engage other points of view. Their arguments work in their world, but get little traction outside it. For example, the book of Matthew says that Judas died by hanging while Luke says he dove into a pile of rocks. When asked to resolve this question, they say that Judas first hung himself, then the rope broke and he landed in the rocks. This argument works in their world, and they seem flummoxed when people outside their circle respond with, "That works for you?"
The Congressional Republicans served up their "talking points" and the President swatted them away. When Congressman Pence said the Republican plan--across-the-board tax cuts, natch--would produce twice the jobs at half the cost, Obama countered smoothly, essentially saying that nobody outside this room believes that, but if anyone did he'd be a fool not to take it seriously, but since they don't, he doesn't.
And the notion that I would somehow resist doing something that cost half as much but would produce twice as many jobs -- why would I resist that? I wouldn't. I mean, that's my point, is that -- I am not an ideologue. I'm not. It doesn't make sense if somebody could tell me you could do this cheaper and get increased results that I wouldn't say, great. The problem is, I couldn't find credible economists who would back up the claims that you just made.
When the topic turned to health care reform, Obama demonstrated that he understood their own internal politics perhaps better than they did. They can't come to agreement with the administration on anything because, if they did, they would be pilloried among their own base. Their own internal politics precludes any bipartisan participation, which makes it impossible to reach bipartisan agreement.
For that very reason, the encounter isn't likely to change much in Congress. As long as the hardest-right of the GOP base holds the rest of the party hostage, the GOP Congressional delegation has zero "whiggle room." The rest of the country, however, saw the President go into the lion's den, engage the opposition, and come out the victor. Following upon a successful State of the Union message, it has been a good week for President Obama.
He was masterful! I cheered, laughed and fist-pumped. Unfortunately, I suspect the opposition did the same. I question if they will understand how neatly they were put in their place.
Posted by: DKSampson | January 30, 2010 at 01:14 PM
I watched it later on Msnbc, most of it anyway and it was mesmerizing to watch--as if only one person in the room actually understood the whole picture and the rest only had hack-kneed platitudes and talking points. As you suggest, hope that works in their fantasy world, it was just splayed open and dissected before their eyes. How could that not jolt them back into some kind of reality? Well, the "crazy-base" has them by the b*lls. It's sad and angering to be held back by it.
Posted by: gs | February 01, 2010 at 08:57 AM
Deb, I think they understand, which is why they won't do that again.
Gs, couldn't agree more. That's the problem when you're guided by a rigid ideology.
Posted by: John Petty | February 01, 2010 at 02:14 PM
C'mon PJ: So you're saying, Barry's "victory" was that he scored debating points against the GOP (an assumption that I'll grant only for the sake of argument)....
Wow! Obama roped the dopes and swatted back their meager attempts to, like govern! And went right back out five days later and proposed spending $3.8 TRILLION next year. That's more than $10,000 for every man, woman and child in America. OK. I'm impressed. Obama wins. We lose.
And yet, anyone listening closely with an educated ear, knows that the Republicans, I think, have finally gotten the message that ALL government is spending way to much.
The people finally are starting to understand that it's not the government's money, it's theirs -- and reserving the right to tell elected leaders when and where to spend it (just not NEARLY so much of it).
Posted by: Ed | February 01, 2010 at 05:56 PM
Hi Ed. You should meet my cousin, Mardi. She agrees with you.
My undergraduate degree was in economics and I was taught to be a Keynesian. According to Keynes, who has now been proven right twice, the government should run deficits during recessions. In any case, when revenue drops in a recession, larger deficits are inevitable. Fully one-half of the deficit in Obama's budget is due to the recession alone.
Posted by: John Petty | February 02, 2010 at 09:39 AM
You might want to tell Obama that.
Posted by: Hypatia | February 02, 2010 at 10:57 AM
Maybe I have. He says he reads bloggers. :)
Posted by: John Petty | February 02, 2010 at 11:41 AM
Were these Republicans asleep for the past 30 years? The worst modern deficits came from Republican Administrations. It was Cheney who said that deficits don't matter.
Want to improve services and bring down the deficit? Reduce the military which accounts for 50% of the federal budget. It's ill-suited for modern warfare anyway.
Posted by: toujoursdan | February 02, 2010 at 09:00 PM