Obama Charms Even a Night's Grand Ol' Party (at George Will's house)

[DeepModem Mom]

WP: Obama Charms Even a Night's Grand Ol' Party
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 15, 2009; Page C01

At one point during the party, CNBC's Larry Kudlow asked Barack Obama why he had hired several of the liberal guests who appeared on his program but left him Robert Reich. "So someone will stick up for me on your show," the president-elect replied.

During a three-hour dinner conclave at columnist George Will's Chevy Chase home Tuesday night, Obama charmed eight of the right's most prominent commentators, mixing small talk and policy debate in a move that mesmerized the media elite.

"Obama's a man who has demonstrated he is interested in hearing other views," said syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer, citing his post-election graciousness toward John McCain. "I guess he wanted to continue that -- as well as co-opting the vast right-wing conspiracy."

Besides Krauthammer and Kudlow, Will's guests were Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol, New York Times columnist David Brooks, Wall Street Journal Editorial Page Editor Paul Gigot, Journal columnist Peggy Noonan and Fox News commentator Michael Barone.

"He's making good on his promise to reach out to Republicans and conservatives and this post-partisan stuff, whatever that means," Kudlow said. "I was very impressed. He's a nice guy, terribly smart, well-informed, great smile. He just really engaged. He said he likes to know the arguments on all sides."

Barone called Obama "an attractive person in a small setting. It's harder to hate someone you've had close contact with and who has pleasant characteristics."

Obama balanced the scales yesterday by sitting down with 11 liberal commentators, including The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson, syndicated columnist E.J. Dionne, Maureen Dowd and Frank Rich of the New York Times, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, CNN's Roland Martin, and a conservative -- Atlantic blogger Andrew Sullivan -- who strongly supported his campaign. That meeting took place in the less intimate setting of Obama's transition office, and lasted a little more than an hour. Both sessions were decreed off the record....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/14/AR2009011404155.html?hpid=topnews

[dkf]

1. I love reading this stuff.

I'm so proud of our guy and hope these righties can see what I see when I look at the man.

[firedupdem]

2. I'm proud of him too. They want to hate him so bad but he keeps

disarming them! Love it!

[FrenchieCat]

3. You mean.....

It's not politics as usual?

Who knew? :wow:

[Submariner]

4. Obama needs to bring along a food taster when he mingles with that slimy reich wing crowd

I don't think I could have lowered myself to be in the same room as Kristol, so I give a lot of credit to Obama for taking this step of getting in the face of the enemy.

[Undercurrent]

5. This is just the sort of thing I voted for. Obama is true to his word.

If we have any hope of solving the monumental problems facing America, there must be times when we lay down our political weapons, and have a cease fire.

[EraOfResponsibility]

6. allow me to share this wonderful comment from the jack and jill politics blog:

• O the conservatives are being Obamatized....lol lol

Anyone who has read his history, knows he beat out 18 other folks to become the first AA to head the harvard law review, and the number one comment his classmates said for why they voted for him is that despite him being liberal, all the conservatives felt he would LISTEN, that he would not simply be dismissive of them or their ideas but he would engage them in thoughtful discourse without the 'insults/snares...as Kudlow puts it.

I do not know what conservatives have been listening to all this time...but these are well known facts about Obama ...he is congenial, charming ...looks polemics, and is most fascinated by multiple points of view...and he has the intellectual brillance to pull together disparate parts to create a whole.

The conservatives are now going to have a hard time knocking Barack, now that
This is what I love about Obama...he did not go to Washington to rule but to govern.

The GOP has been backbiting and infighting so long in their efforts to rule that they do not know what good governance looks like.

But they are about to find out.

Obamatized they are...and they will go forth among their ranks and create more OBamacans



Go Barack...work that magic on them...reMEMber the GOP already thinks you are a 'magicNegro' ...so go right ahead and overwhelm them with your powers...

Indeed.

[boppers]

7. "Who would you have a beer with"?

The O gets it.

He'll sit down and listen to them shovel shit, they'll then feel important for manning their shovels, and their tantrums can abate, because they're being.... listened to.

Sometimes, people with the ego, and intellect, of small children.... just want to feel validated.

[mmonk]

8. Good thing or bad thing? There will always be something in me

that doesn't like cozy relationships between elected government officials and the press.

[democracy1st]

9. K & R

[Hope And Change]

10. K & R!