Dave vs Bill:
Can we get along?

Dave Newton says:

They're saying he's nuts to keep talking to the other side. They're even saying he's disloyal to his party. But Barack Obama appears to be sticking to his campaign to engage Congressional Republicans, in order to make progress on his agenda. And what is his agenda? To reform healthcare. To get the economy moving again. To get out of Iraq and prosecute Afghanistan. He could be shouting down the Republicans and encouraging the Democrat leadership to ram the program down Republican throats, thus maintaining the dysfunctional legislative circus we all hate. But he's not. He insists on trying to get our own civil war to simmer down. Is Obama self-destructive? Or should we, maybe, consider working together?

Bill Hurme says:

President Obama is as subtle as a train wreck. This 'summit' is pure show biz, because he refuses to recognize that America does not want massive health care reform. So what's wrong with the summit? There shouldn't be one! This is the wrong priority for America at this time. As far as getting the country moving again, unemployment is still very high, Moody issued a warning about our Triple AAA sovereign rating, and as for the new Obama budget, forget-about-it. The President sent his budget to Congress and proposed that the government spend $3.83 trillion in fiscal 2011. That is $1.1 trillion more than the federal budget nine years ago. In short, the Obama administration's first term is looking more like George W. Bush's third term. The overly-maligned President Bush left Obama with a $1.4 trillion deficit in fiscal 2009. The deficit under Obama's first year is set to rise to $1.6 trillion. This isn't working together, Dave, it's just a thinly disguised power play by a failing president.

Dave says:

I'll take that as a "no." So I ask what's wrong with trying to walk through the fog of political war and get the Congress to work like it's supposed to, and I get a right-wing cynicism blitz. I think the Republicans are so bloodthirsty they'd rather just keep dancing until the next election — and there'll always be a next election, mere months away. So, all the trouble we're in is a reason not to work together? I'm not naive, and I refuse to believe Obama is. Sooner or later, we either stop pointing fingers and get together or we slide off the listing Titanic deck together.

Bill says: Yeah, but my response was fun to write.

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