Obama Playes the Blame Game with House GOP on live TV

[J.Anderson]

As I have been critical of Obama lately, I will compliment him on this move. This is virtually unprecedented. I can't personally remember any time when a sitting president stood before a live TV audience answering questions from a room full of his most bitter political opponents. After the isolated secrecy of the Bush administration, this is a good change. I think we should all be able to at least agree on that count: Obama has kept his word about being accessible. Hopefully this will set a standard, and future presidents will have to follow this example.

Obama rumbles with House GOP - Yahoo! News

[samspade]

“He didn't even address the question,” Price grumbled afterward. “He distorted the premise and refused to even answer the question."

Price said Republicans had proven that they have ideas, that Obama has received them and that he wouldn’t answer their questions.

"I don't know that you could get any more out of that than we did,” he said."

[CubsFanJohn]

If I was Boehner I wouldn't have invited him.

[Maylar]

I dunno, the Mass. vote has put the breaks bigtime on the healthcare stuff. I suspect Obama is doing this NOW because if he doesn't get a least a few GOP supports, this healthcare thing will blow up so badly in his face he will be done.

[TheOperative]

Dubya was the only other president to do this.

[J.Anderson]

Really? I must have missed that. Can someone link me to the story?

[TheOperative]

Bush on Charm Offensive at Democratic Retreat - ABC News

[Susanna]

Bush on Charm Offensive at Democratic Retreat - ABC News

Well, let's hope it doesn't work for Obama.

[indepenence]

The article I read made it sound like it was more like live posturing and propagation of framing than actual discussion of problems and potential solutions.

I believe politics has mostly degenerated into framing-discourse designed to underwrite the kinds of policies supported by the parties.

E.g. dems/libs are going to keep framing the economy in terms of wealth and income inequalities instead of focussing on the production and distribution of non-monetary resources. They also focus on social-economic structuring, i.e. job-creation, regulation, and access-control. They want everyone to have a well-defined "place" in a highly regulated economic "structure" and then they want them all to be well-rewarded financially for conforming to their allotted position.

Reps, on the other hand, seem to have degenerated into insisting on freedom as nothing more than the de-regulation of any and all forms of governance. They seem to basically want to shield all business activities from any form of visibility or accountability. They refuse to consider private enterprise or corporate governance as being subject to democratic accountability in any way. So they tend to frame all politics in terms of "intrusion into private affairs"

What really needs to happen is for political ideology to radically shift gears and start doing something other than catering to a too-long tradition of social-economic structuring in terms of statuses, institutions, etc. Politics needs to be about addressing the fundamental realities of social problems instead of making them all about spending and organizational regulation.

The real government is bureaucratization and organizational structuring, and that governance is protected from democratic intervention by having a representative government that shields it by using it as an instrument for top-down regulation instead of making it the direct object of political interventions.

I believe this goes back to GWB's famous talk where he was chastized for saying that OBGYNs weren't able to "practice their love of women." What he obviously mean was that rules, red-tape, and other structuring was interfering with the ability of individuals to simply do what they can.

This problem is not limited to govt. red tape, however. It is also caused by corporate structuring and other economic norms and patterns that have come to function as forms of market control. The problem is that loads of free-market actors have figured out ways of defining and structuring their market positions and build up relational networks with others in ways that put loyalty and mutually beneficial relationships above flexibility to restructure.

Obviously, in a recessionary economy people cling to the means of income they have and avoid the risks of flexibilizing their activities and restructuring in ways that let go of what control over markets they have. But how is an economy ever supposed to develop and grow if economic social relations and assumptions become so hardened?

I think many basic assumptions and practices need to be radically re-thought, but I don't know how this is possible when the current government limits interference to the level of taxation and spending initiatives.

[J.Anderson]

Thanks for the link, but Bush met with the democrats "behind closed doors" for a "mingling" session, not in front of live cameras for a grilling by political opponents trying to destroy him.