Griper Blade: Winning the Public Opinion War

Yesterday, I wrote that Republicans are enjoying their minority status, because it means they no longer feel the need to make sense or be responsible or get anything done. Free to be as wingnutty as they want to be, they can repeat thoroughly debunked economic theories and beat their ideological drum as loud as they want, since there's no consequence for them in being 100% wrong. They can propose insane alternatives that serve no purpose other than to shore up their far right bona fides, then complain that the dems shut out their "better ideas" when those insane alternatives are rejected. Grandstanding and theatrics are much, much more fun than actually getting anything done.

At President Obama's first press conference last night, he was asked a question about bipartisanship by CBS News' Chip Reid:

You have often said that bipartisanship is extraordinarily important, overall and in this stimulus package, but now, when we ask your advisers about the lack of bipartisanship so far -- zero votes in the House, three in the Senate -- they say, "Well, it's not the number of votes that matters; it's the number of jobs that will be created."

Is that a sign that you are moving away -- your White House is moving away from this emphasis on bipartisanship?

And what went wrong? Did you underestimate how hard it would be to change the way Washington works?

It was a good question... [CLICK TO READ FULL POST]