Obama Shows Some Life

Here's a bit from a NY Times op-ed by Maureen Dowd:

White House advisers thought that if they asked that cameras and reporters be allowed in for the usually closed Q. and A. with the president at the annual retreat of House Republicans, the Republicans might say no and look obstructionist.

But the Republicans realized what the White House was up to, got irritated and opened up the exchange in Baltimore to show they weren’t scared of the smart, facile and newly warmblooded Barack Obama.

And during the next hour and a half, our government did not look quite so lame.

Obama is always at his best when his back is against the wall, and he is perversely content when he has the challenge of the lion’s den.

He may lapse back into his Camus coma at any moment. But on Friday he dropped the diffident debutante act and offered, as he did at the State of the Union, some welcome gumption.

“You know,” he said, halfway through his sparring session with Republicans, “I’m having fun.”

...

But he didn’t hesitate to give Jeb Hensarling a smack-down when the rabid ideologue from Texas asked if the president’s new budget, “like your old budget,” would “triple the national debt.”

Obama crisply told “Jim,” inadvertently (perhaps) mixing up Jeb’s name, “It’s very hard to have the kind of bipartisan work that we’re going to do, because the whole question was structured as a talking point for running a campaign.” Then the president offered a quick math lesson on what Republicans never admit: that it was W. and the Republican Congress who ran up much of our $12 trillion debt and left us pawning our family jewels to the Chinese.

Obama’s advisers must wish they could do this every week for the cameras. It was a lot more elucidating than Joe Wilson shouting, “You lie!”

I would like to think that Obama will stir to life, but he's had a year. It is pretty obvious to me that he isn't committed to any serious change. He is too busy "reaching out" to get down to work fixing the problems that ordinary Americans face.