No one can ever argue that Obama = Bush ever again.

Know why?

Because he went in front of the House GOP and thoroughly cornholed them with the cameras running.

Now imagine Obama replaced with Bush, and the House GOP replaced with House Dems.

Can't do it? That's because it would NEVER, EVER HAPPEN.

but I understand it was excellent!

Considering their attitude when they were in the majority!

about this whole thing. Wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm now watching a repeat of Keith & Rachel's analysis which shows highlights of the event.

job is to show "leadership by standing on their principles and opposing policies they think are bad for the country."

So by that standard the Democrats owe them nothing because their job is to stand on their principles as the ruling majority.

"There aren't that many places where we can come together," House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio said on the NBC program "Meet the Press."

Republicans were elected to stand by their principles, and those principles are different than the "leftist proposals" offered by President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats, Boehner said. <...>

"Leadership is about standing on your principles and opposing those policies that we believe are bad for the country," Boehner said.

What's wrong with that? Absolutely nothing (except the part about President Obama pushing "leftist proposals," which is a silly assessment).

While I didn't see the exchange, if this report is accurate, Boehner argued that Republicans intend to push their ideas, and oppose the policies they find offensive. The goal for congressional Republicans isn't to find "common ground" or "bipartisan solutions" with those they completely disagree with; their goal is to fight for what they believe in, opposing the majority's agenda.

The remarks should make it pretty clear that Republicans have no interest in working with Democrats on finding solutions to pressing policy challenges. But here's the thing that so often gets lost in the discourse: Republicans are the minority party, which means it's their job to oppose the majority's agenda.

"There aren't that many places where can come together"? Well, no, of course not. Democrats and Republicans perceive reality in entirely different ways, and advocate for wildly different solutions to various problems (they don't even agree on which problems exist).

But if Boehner's right about this -- and I believe he is -- then why in the world is it incumbent on the Democratic majority to work with Republicans to find "bipartisan" answers to every question? If Boehner has no intention of "coming together" with Dems in the middle -- a reasonable, albeit rigid, position -- why must the political establishment maintain the fiction that the governing majority is doing something awful unless they bring the discredited minority on board with every proposal?"

Steve Benen~

<more>

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/

This was far harder than a Presidential debate, except that not as many people were watching it live. I'm sure Obama studied up some, but most of his ability came from his thinking and debate skills.

With the GOP you mainly need to be able to burst their delusions with cold hard facts. If you have the facts at hand, there isn't much they can do. Their problem was that they are so used to repeating their deluded world view amongst themselves and not seeing it challenged that they had nothing when the truth confronted them.

Which brings me back to Dubya in his first debate with Kerry. He was flustered by the truth and could only repeat himself and hem and haw and squeak, "It's hard work!"