POTUS Hits Again On Bipartisanship Theme, Hits At GOP’s “Petty Politics”

Bipartisanship continued to be the theme dominating Washington on Tuesday as President Obama met with congressional leaders of both parties and reinforced his desire to work with Republicans on major problems like the economy sand health care that are facing the country.

Starting with his incredible televised Q&A session with House Republicans earlier this month, the president has made reaching out to the opposition a public priority and has sought to engage the them as both a necessary political strategy that forces the GOP to co-manage the crises dragging his approval down as well as a genuine bid to unclog stalled agenda goals in a changed Capitol Hill atmosphere. Obama continued that push by inviting Republicans to a televised White House meeting on health care in a few weeks and then speaking after holding talks with leaders of both parties on Tuesday.

The president on Tuesday again offered a hand of bipartisanship to Republicans on issues like jobs and health care, but he also expressed some of his strongest criticism of what he called the GOP’s “petty politics” that is little more than “grandstanding.”

President Obama declared today that “a sense of purpose that transcends petty politics” must be forged by Democrats and Republicans to create more jobs, reduce the deficit and find at least some common ground on health care.

“We can’t afford grandstanding at the expense of actually getting something done,” Mr. Obama said as he made a surprise appearance at the daily White House briefing for the media only hours after he convened his first monthly bipartisan meeting he called for in the State of the Union address.

Obama took especially hard hits at the Republican demand that Democrats and the White House start fresh on health care legislation, completely gutting the bills now languishing in the House and Senate in order to craft a compromise filled mostly with conservative proposals. “Bipartisanship cannot mean simply that Democrats give up everything that they believe in,” the president said.

“Bipartisan can’t be that I agree to all the things that they believe in or want and they agree to none of the things that I want,” Mr. Obama said.

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“Bipartisanship cannot mean simply that Democrats give up everything that they believe in,” Mr. Obama said. He added, “That’s not how it works in any other realm of life. That’s certainly not how it works in my marriage with Michelle. There’s got to be some give and take.”

But compromise was also forthcoming from the president, as he noted that some of his “preferences” may need to be eliminated from a final health care package in order to please both sides. And Obama did mention Republican ideas such as malpractice reform that could be included in a bipartisan bill, the first hint at what a health care deal could look like after the bipartisan meeting at the end of this month.

Another hot button issue for the president was the move by Senate Republicans, most notably Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama,  to block presidential appointees for several White House and administration positions. Shelby has blocked several nominees recently in a bid to force the White House to reinstate spending for “pet” projects in his home state of Alabama.

The president made his first mention on Tuesday of a threat to make recess appointments and bypass the Senate for the remainder of the year, a move that could complicate his efforts to forge compromise with the GOP on core legislation.

“In our meeting, I asked the Congressional leadership to put a stop to these holds in which nominees for critical jobs are denied a vote for months,” Mr. Obama said. “Surely we can set aside partisanship and do what’s traditionally been done to confirm these nominations. If the Senate does not act – and I made this very clear – if the Senate does not act to confirm these nominees, I will consider making several recess appointments.”

Is Obama’s unprecedented bipartisan push working? It’s a mixed bag, as Republicans emerged from Tuesday’s White House chat promising cooperation on minor legislative and agenda items like nuclear energy while still chafing at the president’s call for more compromise from the right side of the aisle, especially in regards to health care legislation. Their argument is that Obama and the Democrats ignored them from the start of crafting a bill, so any restart now that includes all Republicans must eliminate the contentious provisions in the current bills, which would mean scrapping them entirely and abandoning much of what the president outlined for his health care agenda.

One step the GOP did take was to backtrack a bit on their threat to boycott Obama’s televised bipartisan meeting on health care. After sending a letter filled with “questions” for the White House on Monday with the assumption that they would not show up unless the fairly outrageous demands were met, the House Republican leadership indicated that they would “absolutely” participate in the groundbreaking health care talks.

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