What, exactly, would be the benefit of trying to stick with the 7th for the speech?

It seems to me like this went exactly as planned. They stepped on the Repub debate. Made the Reps go into a tizzy. Made Boner show that he's more concerned about his party's political face and orders from Limbaugh than he is about JOBS, which is the entire subject of the speech. And then smiled and played nice, agreeing to move it a day.

What possible benefit is there of continuing to insist on the 7th? Taking away 1% of the potential viewership for a Republican debate that few people knew was happening anyway? The White House doesn't want that--hell, they've been sending out emails ASKING people to watch the Republican debates, because the more people see the crazy, the better it is for the White House. They scored some points off it, including drawing more attention to the Rep debate, and now have every reason NOT to hold the joint session on that night.

a spine!

Yeah, that's really what Americans want out of their government right now, to be obsessed with squabbles. The message that comes out of this is, Obama wants to do something about Jobs, Boner wants to play politics.

laughing about how they screwed Obama again. Then again he will probably just do the same old thing and offer the Republicans more concessions, so in the end it doesn't matter much anyway I guess.

That's about it.

that Boehner got his way and won AGAIN!

I'm just bummed that Obama conceeded to Boehner again. Disheartened that Boehner keeps whipping Obama's a**

Boehner, constitutionally, doesn't have to hold a joint session of congress.

If it wasn't worth fighting for (and it wasn't), why invite the conflict in the first place?

The Prez couldn't "force" them to be there. Them's the rules. Damn, I made the mistake of looking at HuffPo - who writes the headlines there?

He can only recommend a date.

The Obama people fucked up. Just admit it and move on, instead of trying to spin this as being twelfth dimension Vulcan chess. It's not, they just tried to be petty and were SHOCKED I TELL YOU when the Republicans were pettier.