"Impractical," said Burton.
"Too bad," responds this blogger.
The White House frets that a regularly scheduled time period would kill the spontaneity that was evident in last week's Baltimore showdown with Republicans.
Spontaneity should not be the issue. Straight talk is the issue. The Baltimore was riveting and informative viewing. Obama has been unfairly demonized by Tea Bag partiers and their echo chamber at Fox News. Things have gotten so out of whack, a good chunk of self-identified GOPers peg Obama as a racist, socialist, terrorist-loving non-U.S. citizen, according to a poll released this week by the left-leaning DailyKos. An incredible 63 percent of responders consider Obama a socialist. Nearly a quarter (24 percent) of those polled say the President "wants the terrorists to win." Another third aren’t sure. Obama used the Baltimore forum to criticize Republican extremists who call healthcare reform a "Bolshevik plot."
Future Q&A sessions could be used to dismantle other loony claims.
Obama has gotten off his knees. The newly reveived President was at his best in Baltimore. It got to the point at which Fox News couldn’t take it anymore, pulling the plug on the forum because the President was on the verge of scoring a knock-out. It should now be apparent to all that "Fair and Balanced" and "We Report, You Decide" are meaningless Fox chestnuts.
If conspiracy pushers and scandal-mongers (e.g., ACORN “stole” the election, Obama is a proud son of Kenya) knew that they were going to face the President in an open forum, they wouldn’t be deal in such verbal trash.
Q&A events may even encourage bipartisanship or at the very least give some spine to spineless Democrats who apparently are content to fritter away gains in healthcare, energy and financial regulation because the Republicans picked up a single seat in the Senate, giving them 41 seats.
A Village Voice headline neatly summed up the Democrats reaction to the GOP win in the Bay State with the the snide headline, “Scott Brown Wins Mass. Race, Giving GOP 41-59 Majority.”
This blogger hopes the White House reconsiders Q&As, sessions that ultimately could restore some civility (and rationality) to the political discourse.