A very good thing happened for our country on January 29 – President Obama met with the House Republican Conference in Baltimore.  Perhaps as important as the meeting was the fact that the meeting was televised.  We were able to watch something akin to a presidential debate during an election.  But better was that there was no moderator.  It was just good old fashioned give and take.

Check it out for yourself:

President Obama is a very unusual man. He has a striking intelligence – nothing really special about this – there are a lot of smart people. There are lawyers and Medical Doctors and PH.D’s in the House and Senate. Our Government is well populated with intelligence. What strikes us about Obama is his phenomenal patience.

This conference started off with the Republican leader comparing Obama to President Carter. Carter is the poster child for a poor presidency. To make that sort of comparison is about the greatest insult one can offer. But President Obama just smiled – then he re-framed the question in reality with real facts. He did not offer any return sarcasm or below the belt shots at the Republican.

Here are some quotes from the President in the attached video:

• “What most of you would say are common sense things”
  “I have looked at every idea out there”
  “I may not agree to a tax cut for Warren Buffet”
  “There has not been an administration who was tougher”
  “Some of these ideas we have embraced”
  “You’d think that this thing was some Bolshevik plot”
  “It can’t just be political assertions”
  “That’s not how democracy works”
  “A media that responds only to slash-and-burn style politics”
  “I’ll go through it with you line by line”

President Obama is a very unusual man.