In one of the most amazing stand-up performances I've ever seen in politics, President Obama tore apart House Republicans' talking points and flimsy arguments at their caucus retreat yesterday.
And, he made a very important point: when you go out and call me the devil and a socialist, you box yourself in. You can't negotiate or make a deal with me now because by your own rhetoric you'd be making a deal with the devil. If you vote for any of my policies now you're vulnerable with your own base.
The session is more than an hour long, but IT'S WORTH WATCHING EVERY MINUTE. I was riveted watching last night, and never more proud to have Barack Obama as our president.
Watch here.
I hope for more of these sessions (sort of like "Questions" in the British Parliment). Perhaps one improvement would be to have a nonpartisan panel of experts in the room that would simply give a True/False rating to the factual claims made by each side (since there was a lot of disagreement over basic facts as you might expect).
