{"id":1799,"date":"2010-01-30T09:49:50","date_gmt":"2010-01-30T14:49:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=1799"},"modified":"2010-01-30T09:49:50","modified_gmt":"2010-01-30T14:49:50","slug":"question-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=1799","title":{"rendered":"Question time"},"content":{"rendered":"

In case you haven't seen the exchange yesterday between President Obama and the entire House Republican Caucus, do yourself a favor, and watch the whole thing (or read it<\/a>).  An excerpt:<\/p>\n

\n

Now, you may not agree with Bob Dole and Howard Baker and Tom — and certainly you don't agree with Tom Daschle on much . . .<\/p>\n

(LAUGHTER)<\/p>\n

. . . but that's not a radical bunch. But if you were to listen to the debate, and, frankly, how some of you went after this bill, you'd think that this thing was some Bolshevik plot. <\/strong><\/p>\n

(LAUGHTER)<\/p>\n

No, I mean, that's how you guys — that's how you guys presented it.<\/p>\n

(APPLAUSE)<\/p>\n

And so I'm thinking to myself, "Well, how is it that a plan that is pretty centrist<\/a> . . . "<\/p>\n

(LAUGHTER)<\/p>\n

No, look, I mean, I'm just saying — I know you guys disagree, but if you look at the facts of this bill, most independent observers would say this is actually what many Republicans — it — it's similar to what many Republicans proposed to Bill Clinton<\/a> when he was doing his debate on health care.<\/p>\n

So all I'm saying is we've got to close the gap a little bit between the rhetoric and the reality. <\/strong><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

I mean, the fact of the matter 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<\/a> fashion because what you've been telling your constituents<\/a> is, "This guy's doing all kinds of crazy stuff that's going to destroy America."<\/p>\n

And I — I would just say that we have to think about tone.<\/p>\n

It's not just on your side, by the way. It's — 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.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Mrs. NonSequitur, a lawyer, observed that at moments it felt like lawyer Obama was attempting to get an unreasonable client to see that a settlement of their case cannot in principle mean they get one-hundred percent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In case you haven't seen the exchange yesterday between President Obama and the entire House Republican Caucus, do yourself a favor, and watch the whole thing (or read it).  An excerpt: Now, you may not agree with Bob Dole and Howard Baker and Tom — and certainly you don't agree with Tom Daschle on much … Continue reading Question time<\/span> →<\/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":[633,413,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-barack-obama-politicians-sources","category-hollow-man","category-straw-man"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1799","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=1799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1799\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}