Sullivan as a liberal? I have a lot of respect for the guy but he never calls himself anything but a conservative although he supported Obama.

They're all traditional media.

I don't care if Obama sits down with conservatives, but I'd like to see him sit down with leftists as well. Official Washington acts as if all conservatives are respectable, centrist Democrats and moderate liberals are respectable, and actual strong progressives are anathema. Imagine Obama sitting down with Amy Goodman or Naomi Klein, for example. It just doesn't happen. Center-left Democrats shun anyone to their left, or treat them as jokes (ha ha, isn't Rep. Kucinich a silly man?).

Agree with LB on Sullivan. In this context "liberal" clearly means "someone who supports Obama." Words have truly ceased to have any meaning.

George Will, Charles Krauthammer, William Kristol, Larry Kudlow, David Brooks, Rich Lowry, Peggy Noonan, Michael Barone, and Paul Gigot. E.J. Dionne, Eugene Robinson, Gerry Seib, Ron Brownstein, Frank Rich, Maureen Dowd, Andrew Sullivan, and Rachel Maddow.

Do I detect a shortage of Southerners?

Ruffini and PowerLine are right; Will and Brooks, at least, are not representative of conservative media. Will is actually readable sometimes, and I'll admit to enjoying Brooks more often than not. They're representative of the fast-diminishing informed and reasonable wing of conservative media-- not exactly PowerLine's demographic.

not having read her yet, i await the razor sharp analysis of digby, but it seems to me that all Obama is doing is just making the rounds of the Villagers.

there is something to his integrity that leads him to put himself out there, sit with them, listen to them, look at them eye-to-eye. (Well, those who've taken their medication and are settled enough to look into his eyes -- perhaps Noonan vodka martini'd enough).

Must be that damn community organizing authenticity... he even deals with the gangs and the hoods who want to destroy the neighborhood.

Paul Krugman was apparently invited to, but did not attend, the session today.

Somehow the Conservatives fighting amoungst themselves over who is a conservative does not dismay me one whit.

Though let us hope NOW Charles K will stop saying that 'America doesn't know who Obama is'.

What sticks out like a sore thumb (or genuinely pregnant belly ;-) is that many of the "liberals" aren't really anyway. Just take Andrew Sullivan, berated by the "real conservatives" of course for not towing their line but calling himself a conservative and touting his book The Conservative Soul: How We Lost It, How to Get It Back, and we all know how flabby "liberals" like Maureen Dowd are. Where is Glenn Greenwald (wow is he great), Juan Cole, et al? But of course, conservatives want it all. Lying about the existing balance is just one of their techniques for tilting said balance their way.

I think the dichotemy is between, as Steve properly noted, between "the stark raving mad" and everyone else. The problem is that the msm tends to view the far left as stark raving mad while it treats the far right as conservative. Most of my Republican friends consider me a leftist but that is only because compared to Kristol or Kudlow I am. The nice thing about Maddow is that while she consistently pushes more leftist memes she is a reasonable human being--or at least comes across that way. I would like it most if Obama gave access to people of all political stripes who are not lunatics.

"This is not a mainstream bunch."
Will and Krauthammer write for the Washington Post. Kristol and Brooks write for the New York Times. Gigot runs the editoral page of one of the biggest papers in the country.

"Kristol and Kudlow are stark raving mad. "
I think you could find a lot of conservatives who think that Maddow, Rich, and Dowd are 'stark raving mad.'

Steve: Your point, [which is that the conservatives are all significantly right of center and the 'liberals' include a conservative, Andrew Sullivan, and Brownstein, whose wife worked for McCain, as well as Gerry Seib who is about as moderate as they come, ] is an excellent point.

Your point gets lost when you dive off the deep end needlessly.

If Obama really wanted to get his brains filled/picked, he would have started his "liberal" list with, say, Greenwald. Or Scheer, who would have been great. Or, if he REALLY wanted a different voice, somebody like Alec Cockburn of Counterpunch. Fat chance.

Dowd is fluff. Sully is a neo-Sullivanite, not liberal. Rich is hot air as much as liberalism.

===

Neill, the first part of your post, about Villagers, tres true. The second part, about integrity, you lost me.

I suppose the critics of this meeting wanted O'Reilly, Hannity, Limbaugh and Coulter at that meeting. That has become their definition of "conservative." Needless to say, it gives true conservatives a really bad name. As for the meeting with liberals/progressives, I too would have liked to see Amy Goodman, Noami Klein, Tom Hartmann and Noam Chomsky included. Maddow is great, and I have enormous respect for Frank Rich as well. And Andrew Sullivan is a conservative, though he's regained his sanity in the past year or two.

Actually it's nice that the right-wing crowd didn't consider these dinner people "quite conservative enough." It might indicate that the little war going on in the right-wing over conservative purity and failures resulting from not being sufficiently conservative are continuing. Anything that makes this lunatic fringe look more lunatic is fine. It couldn't happen to a more deserving bunch of dysfunctional nuts.

The village political spectrum extends from mushy centrism on the left to hardline fanaticism on the right.

Lets see, Palin studied journalism. And Obama could have met with noted conservative war correspondent Joe the Plumber. And Malkin.

Wonder if that dinner list would be wingnutty enough for the lunatic fringe?

(By the way, has anyone heard whether Lowry recounted for Obama the impact Palin's winking - at him! - had on him at the debate?)

I admire Obama's willingness to engage, intellectually, competing ideas and perspectives.

Yeah, uh-huh. I have no respect for anyone who breaks bread with these lying sacks of shit. To be called a terrorist-sympathizer, anti-american and a traitor isn't my fucking idea of intellectually competing ideas.

These men and women will do all in their power to obstruct, demean and derail anything Obama tries to do and they'll still get their paychecks and still be treated as responsible, reasonable voices of "competing ideas."

Fuck Obama and this bullshit outreach.

Andrew Sullivan is CONSERVATIVE, tho perhaps Obama confuses homosexuality with liberalism, as seems to his religious buddy "Pastor" Warren.

In fact, didn't Andrew just write a book about being conservative? And didn't he castigate Bush for years for not being a true conservative?

I don't think these were truly lists of liberals and conservatives, I think they were lists of pundits who endorsed McCain v. pundits who endorsed Obama.

...George Will, Charles Krauthammer, William Kristol, Larry Kudlow, David Brooks, Rich Lowry, Peggy Noonan, Michael Barone, and Paul Gigot.

Good lord, if that's not a banquet of EPIC FAIL then I don't know what one would look like.

...George Will, Charles Krauthammer, William Kristol, Larry Kudlow, David Brooks, Rich Lowry, Peggy Noonan, Michael Barone, and Paul Gigot.

to phrase it another way...

"EPIC FAIL: It's what's for dinner."

PE Obama is killing them with kindness. Like a
Love bomb.

Wow, a real adult gonna be in da big house soon. Imagine that.

This time next week we all gonna be partyin crazy like.

YAHHH HOOOO !!!!

"...it's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine..." - REM

Here's Larry Kudlow's take on last night's dinner. Apparently he was so charmed he can't remember what he ate.

Most of my Republican friends consider me a leftist but that is only because compared to Kristol or Kudlow I am. -- Terry, @15:06

I know what you mean :) I've always considered myself a pragmatic moderate, back in Poland and here. But, in Poland, I was considered a "right-wing revisionist" (palled around with dissidents too much, I guess) and, here, I've been told -- frequently -- to keep my "flaming commie ideas" to myself. One's perspective seems to depend on the environment in which it grew, non?

Nothing to add here, it's all been done, but it reinforces the point I was making, then defending, in an earlier post today (would have been here sooner, but had to shake shortstop off my ankle): Obama is moving consciously to the right and ignoring critics on the left. Sullivan? He's always called himself a Republican, maybe the last of the Log Cabiners, although he was an early Obama supporter, which seems to count more. Dowd? Who knows what planet she's from, let alone party? The lefty list is a pretty anemic bunch, with a few real stars. Sadly, what you'd expect. Love to have seen Greenwald and Scheer, but if he'd invited GG, O'd still be in the room, nodding and trying to stay awake.

What is Sullivan doing on the liberal list? He may be openly gay, and he may criticize the Bush administration (at least recently, not back when it would have mattered), but he has always been a conservative.

Maureen Dowd is just a ditz. Her take on politics is at the level of a back-biting high school prom queen.

E. J. Dionne is so mildly liberal he may as well be totally middle of the road. Maddow and Rich are the only real liberals on this list, and as others have noted above, Rich is often just a hot air machine.

Robinson, Seib, Brownstein? I have no idea who the rest of the "liberals" are on that list. I've heard of all the conservatives, and they are all way, way, way over there. Will and Brooks are the only two who even bother to formulate an occasional (very occasional) intelligent argument. The others are completely doctrinaire.

The two lists are not even comparable.

I think they should re-name this effort as "The Obama Meets with People Who Have Been Wrong About Almost Everything Yet Still Given Prominent Places in Our Political Discourse Tour."

Sweet f**ing lord ... Dowd and Sullivan classified as "liberals"? Since when and in whose fevered imagination? And giving Kristol respect? Our society -- and the world -- would be better off if the warmongering coward Kristol was given a nice tall glass of antifreeze.

And here I thought Obama would usher in and give prominence to a new group of true intellectuals and thought leaders. Instead, he's just kissing up to the same cadre of idiots who have been so wrong, so many times.

I'm very disappointed.

And here I thought Obama would usher in and give prominence to a new group of true intellectuals and thought leaders. Instead, he's just kissing up to the same cadre of idiots who have been so wrong, so many times.

Uh, where, exactly, is the evidence that Obama is "kissing up to" anyone?

Maybe Obama wanted to address the interests of his hosts/guests instead of having them argue with one another.

In general, Obama's rhetorical job is to reframe the debate and that can't happen if he has to compete with a random group of media celebrities who might try to inject their own framework.

For instance, George Will still thinks FDR made the Great Depression worse and that the FCC is going to reinstate the "Fairness" Doctrine.

So he gets a somewhat similar minded group of people together so they feel comfortable expressing their views/opinions.

With both groups he has really gone behind enemy lines, hopefully to encourage them to elevate their game.

...Seib, Brownstein, and Dowd, their talents notwithstanding...

Dowd has talents? In what area? Clearly not writing or journalism.

Fuck Obama and this bullshit outreach.
Posted by: humboldtblue

he's just kissing up to the same cadre of idiots who have been so wrong, so many times. I'm very disappointed. Posted by: Mark D

Oh, grow the fuck up already, both of you.

Yes, by all means, let's have another rigidly partisan president, this time a left-wing ideologue adamantly closed-minded to any outside ideas that might influence his narrow worldview.

Um...in case you weren't paying attention over the last year or so, Obama isn't your "progressive" savior. The guy's a centrist, and never pretended to be otherwise.

Oh, grow the fuck up already, both of you.

Oh, go fuck your self righteous ass already.

Yes, by all means, let's have another rigidly partisan president, this time a left-wing ideologue adamantly closed-minded to any outside ideas that might influence his narrow worldview.

Show me where I posted that I wanted any such thing. Seriously -- show me in that post where I brought up anything of the sort.

You can't, because you yanked it out of your ass.

I have no issues with Obama meeting with conservatives, appointing them to his cabinet, etc. In fact, I've posted that very thing on this very site many times.

What I do have an issue with is him giving an ounce of time to this collection of conservatives -- a collection full of people proven wrong time and time again. Even Will (the least ideologically rigid of the bunch) has his Fairness Doctrine delusions.

What I want to see is Obama giving time to some new conservatives -- maybe those who have actually been correct more than once or twice ... who are interested in good-faith arguments and policy making ... who actually have a plan for our nation's future other than cutting taxes for the rich and bombing another country.

Instead, Obama gave time to people who slandered him during the election, who have no interests other than their own gain, and who really shouldn't be given the prominent positions they are in.

I will not apologize for finding troubling the fact Obama is giving people face time when, in reality, those specific people should be ignored.

Um...in case you weren't paying attention over the last year or so, Obama isn't your "progressive" savior.

Since you obviously haven't been paying attention, I've never claimed him to be any such thing.

It's simple" In the future, if you cannot respond to what someone actually posts and, instead, decide to just make shit up out of whole cloth do to your own issues, it'd probably be best if you just kindly shut the fuck up.

There is not one serious journalist on either list. They are all a bunch of vapid "pundits" and vacuous "on-air personalities". Every one of them is just another employee of the corporate-owned media, paid huge amounts of money for telling the American people what the corporate aristocracy wants us to hear.

If America's Ultra-Rich Ruling Class, Inc. thinks that "conservative" infotainment will be effective at brainwashing a significant number of Americans into supporting the corporate agenda, then they'll crank out "conservative" infotainment. If they think that "liberal" infotainment will do it, then they'll crank out the "liberal" infotainment.

Enjoy Rachel Maddow's cutesy little interludes in between commercials all you like. But don't imagine that what she is doing presents any real challenge or resistance to the ruthless, rapacious class warfare of America's Ultra-Rich Ruling Class, Inc. against everyone else.

The revolution will not be televised. Except maybe on Democracy Now. And I'm sure not holding my breath waiting for Obama to sit for an interview with Amy Goodman.

at the risk of offending the ideologically pure, this really is pretty simple.

Rachael Maddow has a regular audience of what? Several million between the two airings per night of her TV show, her radio show, and the web? Gene Robinson writes for which paper again? How about Frank Rich (and Krugman was invited)?

Who to the left of that group has an audience nearly as large? Who to the left of that group has a megaphone nearly as influential and consequential?

Obama is spending his time where it has the most potency, not where it has the most purity. Which is exactly what I would expect from someone "reality based," and who has spoken often of the need to let facts and evidence and empiricism drive policy.

Here's Larry Kudlow's take on last night's dinner. Apparently he was so charmed he can't remember what he ate.

Huh. Rush Limbaugh had no trouble describing for his audience each dish he consumed while having lunch with George W. Bush today.

And as usual, zeit nails it. I do hope Obama will spend some time with actual progressive writers and commentators. I really, really hope so. But last night and today, his aim was quantity, not quality, of influence.

Dowd has talents? In what area? -- TG Chicago, @16:09

Self-deception. She thinks very highly of herself and her judgment.

HIM: "Yes, by all means, let's have another rigidly partisan president, this time a left-wing ideologue adamantly closed-minded to any outside ideas that might influence his narrow worldview."

YOU: "Show me where I posted that I wanted any such thing. Seriously -- show me in that post where I brought up anything of the sort"

YOU AGAIN, FROM BEFORE: "Our society -- and the world -- would be better off if the warmongering coward Kristol was given a nice tall glass of antifreeze."

ME: You don't think that's "adamantly closed-minded to any outside ideas that might influence (your) narrow worldview"? No one could possibly misinterpret you?

HIM: "Um...in case you weren't paying attention over the last year or so, Obama isn't your "progressive" savior."

YOU: "Since you obviously haven't been paying attention, I've never claimed him to be any such thing."

YOU AGAIN, FROM BEFORE: "And here I thought Obama would usher in and give prominence to a new group of true intellectuals and thought leaders."

ME AGAIN: You don't think it could be reasonably inferred that your expectations might be a little high? You're the Decider vis-a-vis America's "true intellectuals and thought leaders? He is? The guy was talking to a broad swath of what, unfortunately, passes for "The Left" and "The Right" in the MSM. He didn't pick them - their corporate masters did. The man's just dealing with the people he's going to have to deal with. Charming them, apparently. I bet it gets him far, even if he had to hold his nose at times. I think they call it "politics."

YOU AGAIN: "It's simple" In the future, if you cannot respond to what someone actually posts and, instead, decide to just make shit up out of whole cloth do to your own issues, it'd probably be best if you just kindly shut the fuck up."

SERGEANT HULKA: Lighten up, Francis.

shortstop: you finally got it. Glad to have been of help. But not happy about all the effort. Clearer eyes next time. And your boyfriend.

I Completely AGREE with you, Steve Bennen! In perspective, what matters more is what Obama ultimately does.

And I would add most of us are not at all used to this approach.

We are cynical beyond belief.

We don't even know what what the hell Obama is doing and that's driving us nuts--admit it or not--this is unfamiliar and we are fearful because we don't know the ending to this new script.

ericfree, that was completely incoherent. Once again, you completely missed the point of what you were reading.

Look, I know it was embarrassing having everyone here tell you you were wrong today. But frantically picking the scab in public makes you look even less dignified. It's not news to anyone who's paying attention that we almost all sometimes criticize Obama and/or wish aloud that he'd do selected things differently. It's news that you're the only one who doesn't understand that your own unconsidered and over-the-top criticism--lying about Tim Kaine's actions as DNC chair, comparing David Plouffe to Grover Norquist, etc., etc.--lacks all sense of perspective. And thus--gets no credence.

Looks more like Rove coalition than "leading" conservatives. "Neoconservative" are not conservatives, by the way. So many people get confused by the similarity in names.

And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples.

And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples, Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?

But when Jesus heard that, he said unto them, They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.
:)

He didn't pick them - their corporate masters did.

So Obama has no freewill to choose with whom he meets? Really?

The man's just dealing with the people he's going to have to deal with.

No, he's reaffirming everything that is wrong with our political media: People who are wrong more often than a second-rate Midwestern weatherman being treated as serious commentators, despite their track record of being proven wrong on virtually everything.

(After my quote about giving Kristol a cup of Prestone) You don't think that's "adamantly closed-minded to any outside ideas that might influence (your) narrow worldview"? No one could possibly misinterpret you?

How does not liking one of the most rabidly, disgusting partisan hacks ever to walk the face of the earth automatically make me someone with a "narrow worldview"? Sorry, but in my mind, someone who advocates killing innocent people in furtherance of his twisted agenda deserves ZERO respect. None. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

Oh, and " ... usher[ing] in and giv[ing] prominence to a new group of true intellectuals and thought leaders" doesn't = ONLY LISTEN TO THE FAR LEFT!!!!!!!!one!!11

Again, you're inferring more than I posted, which is your glitch, not mine.

To be honest, I'm not sure if you're this dense, just being obtuse, or need it spelled out in crayon on a Big Chief tablet, but the point is simple:

I always expected Obama to listen to both left and the right (and the middle). I'm okay with that. Always have been, always will be. In fact, it's one of the reasons I voted for the guy.

But when I hear someone talk for nearly two years about changing the way Washington works, changing the way things are done, giving time to new voices and new ideas, only to see him meet with the exact same people who have been screwing up for decades (with a few exceptions, such as Maddow and Sullivan), then why shouldn't I be disapointed?

Why shouldn't I compare the rhetoric to the action and, when they don't match, point out the disparity?

And why shouldn't I be a bit peeved that an admitted Republican is considered "liberal"? Especially when there are other liberal voices -- moderate ones, even -- who would have been a better choice.

Or am I just supposed to ignore the fact that Obama just legitimized people like Kristol (who basically slandered Obama during the campaign)?