White House

Re: Obama Goes To GOP Lions’ Den — And Mauls The Lions, Sam Stein, Huffington Post, 01/29/10

President Obama traveled to a House Republican retreat in Baltimore on Friday and delivered a performance that was at once defiant, substantive and engaging.

Somehow, Obama knew beforehand that he could win the arguments that these Republicans are hurling at him in the media most everyday, arguments like, “The Republicans have a health care plan, but Pelosi ignored it,” and “Our health care plan would insure all Americans at half the cost.” He went in to the Q & A confidently. Obama took on the worst and most vitriolic talking points that the right could throw at him and volleyed back with clear and concise logic and fact. President Obama did more than that, he went to the heart of the tea bagger talking points that have Republican constituencies in such an uproar and shined a bright light of truth on them. You can read the entire transcript of the question and answer session here.

The President was asked by US Representative Jason Chaffetz (R) UT-3:

CONGRESSMAN CHAFFETZ: And I appreciate you being here.

I’m one of 22 House freshmen. We didn’t create this mess, but we are here to help clean it up. You talked a lot about this deficit of trust. There’s some things that have happened that I would appreciate your perspective on, because I can look you in the eye and tell you we have not been obstructionists. Democrats have the House and Senate and the presidency. And when you stood up before the American people multiple times and said you would broadcast the health care debates on C-SPAN, you didn’t. And I was disappointed, and I think a lot of Americans were disappointed.

You said you weren’t going to allow lobbyists in the senior-most positions within your administration, and yet you did. I applauded you when you said it — and disappointed when you didn’t.

You said you’d go line by line through the health care debate — or through the health care bill. And there were six of us, including Dr. Phil Roe, who sent you a letter and said, “We would like to take you up on the offer; we’d like to come.” We never heard a letter, we never got a call. We were never involved in any of those discussions.

And when you said in the House of Representatives that you were going to tackle earmarks — in fact, you didn’t want to have any earmarks in any of your bills — I jumped up out of my seat and applauded you. But it didn’t happen.

More importantly, I want to talk about moving forward, but if we could address –

The President explained to the Congressman that over the course of the health care debate most of it was actually on CSPAN. There were so many committees that it was impossible to cover them all live because of logistical difficulties. The best part comes toward the end of his answer when be skillfully pivots and begins addressing the vitriolic health care talking points that have been repeated by the right wing fringe from tea baggers to FOX Entertainment. (I refuse to call it news.) It was here that President Obama explained to the GOP audience the fact that they have boxed themselves in by working up their constituents in such an anti-Obama fervor, than any attempt by them to sit down with him for any meaningful discussion would be treated like treason to the party.

So all I’m saying is, we’ve got to close the gap a little bit between the rhetoric and the reality. I’m not suggesting that we’re going to 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 then don’t have a lot of room to negotiate with me.

I mean, the fact of the matter is, is that many of you, if you voted with the administration on something, are politically vulnerable in your own base, in your own party. You’ve given yourselves very little room to work in a bipartisan fashion because what you’ve been telling your constituents is, this guy is doing all kinds of crazy stuff that’s going to destroy America.

And I would just say that we have to think about tone. It’s not just on your side, by the way — it’s on our side, as well. This is part of what’s happened in our politics, where we demonize the other side so much that when it comes to actually getting things done, it becomes tough to do.

Now, the next step is for President Obama to attend a gathering of the Progressive Caucus and take their questions in the same manner. They throw as much vitriol at Obama as does his political opponents. The left attack Obama just as much as the right. The far left radicalize nuclear power, gay rights, Obama’s economic team, and a host of other issues. He must confront them next.

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