Red v. Blue

Finally got around to watching Obama's Q&A with the Republican House Caucus (guess I'm catching up on all sorts of stuff tonight... *grin*). Been meaning to watch it since it last week, but I forgot about it until Jon mentioned it on The Daily Show tonight. God, I hope he has public meetings like this with the Republicans (of both chambers) more often. I think they would go a long way to curing the partisan rancor we've got festering in this country. Not just among the actual politicians, but among all the rest of us as well. We choose up sides (and I admit full guilt of this myself) and bash the other team like it's some kind of sporting match, and it's getting really old -- and it's not helping at all. The only way we can possibly turn things around is if the politicians start actually talking to each other, and show us that they're talking to each other, and find ways to point out their common goals and methods in addition to the points on which they disagree -- and dump all the rhetoric about death panels and socialism/fascism, and yes, that all businesses are evil or that "bootstrap-pulling" republicans are selfish racist bastards who don't care about working people. And if all the media pundits (especially the wings, i.e. Fox News and MSNBC...the latter of which, I admit, I enjoy watching, though I honestly do take their reporting with a couple grains of salt... *grin*) would chill on the baseless accusations and the oversimplification of complex issues and the narrative manipulation and the conspiracy theorizing, that would be a huge help.

Gawd, it's like being caught in the middle of a custody battle or something. Just stop bickering and get shit done already! Thank you...