{"id":1138,"date":"2009-01-14T08:33:04","date_gmt":"2009-01-14T14:33:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=1138"},"modified":"2009-01-14T08:33:21","modified_gmt":"2009-01-14T14:33:21","slug":"opposition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=1138","title":{"rendered":"Opposition party"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The other week I was going to post something about how Obama reads criticism closely and takes it seriously.&nbsp; This, I think, is a praiseworthy intellectual habit.&nbsp; Perhaps the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2009\/01\/13\/obamas-dinner-with-conser_n_157701.html\">following item<\/a>, however, means that he is taking it too far:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<div class=\"entry_body_text\">\n<p>Barack Obama took the next big step in his Republican charm offensive on Tuesday night, when he dined with several of the nation&#39;s most prominent conservative pundits.<\/p>\n<p>The president-elect arrived at the Chevy Chase, Md., home of syndicated columnist <a href=\"http:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?s=George+Will+and+Obama\">George Will<\/a> shortly after 6:30 p.m., according to a press pool report. Greeting him at the residence were other luminaries of the conservative commentariat, including the Weekly Standard&#39;s <a href=\"http:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?s=Kristol+and+Obama\">William Kristol<\/a>, New York Times columnist <a href=\"http:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?s=Brooks+and+Obama\">David Brooks<\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?s=Krauthammer+and+Obama\">Charles Krauthammer<\/a> of the Washington Post.<\/p>\n<p>The odd-couple gathering led to <a href=\"http:\/\/hotair.com\/archives\/2009\/01\/13\/is-obama-meeting-with-rush-limbaugh-tonight\/\">speculation<\/a> that Rush Limbaugh, who said that he was in D.C. for a &quot;secret meeting,&quot; was also in attendance. &quot;I&#39;m just offering, a personal trip, nobody even has to know about this,&quot; the notorious and combative talk show host wrote on his website.<\/p>\n<p>Alas, a source close to the transition confirms, Limbaugh was definitely not in attendance during the dinner affair &#8212; likely disappointing some in the conservative blogosphere, knowing full well the fury that would have caused among progressives.<\/p>\n<p>Nevertheless, Obama&#39;s choice of dining partners seem likely to cause its fair share of hair-pulling and eye-rolling. As the pool reporter, Ken Bazinet of the New York Daily News, penned in his write up: &quot;This is for real, folks. <strong>The bloggers are going to love this one<\/strong>.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Obama has pledged to be a uniter once in office. He&#39;s also said he is willing to take policy suggestions from any source, regardless of ideological affiliation, as long as they work. So far, he&#39;s living up to his word.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div class=\"entry_body_text\">\n<p>I wonder who did the cooking. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<blockquote>\n<div class=\"entry_body_text\"> \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t                                                                   <\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The other week I was going to post something about how Obama reads criticism closely and takes it seriously.&nbsp; This, I think, is a praiseworthy intellectual habit.&nbsp; Perhaps the following item, however, means that he is taking it too far: Barack Obama took the next big step in his Republican charm offensive on Tuesday night, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=1138\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Opposition party<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[246,115,136,129,1985],"class_list":["post-1138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-barack-obama","tag-charles-krauthammer","tag-david-brooks","tag-george-will","tag-william-kristol"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1138\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}