Oh Playmate

Come out and play with me
And bring your dollies three.
Climb up my apple tree,
Look down my rain barrel
Slide down my cellar door
And we'll be jolly friends
Forever more.


OK, Prime Minister Obama's Questions today really was quite remarkable.

From the NYT:

...
MR. BIDEN: Mr. President. I want to begin by thanking all of you for being here today.

Represented in this room -- with notable exceptions of some of my old friends -- represented here in this room the finest minds in the country, representing a wide range of views across the political, ideological and academic spectrum.

And today we're asking you to help us begin to tackle the challenges of our nation's long-term fiscal situation. We explore -- we are going to explore how we got where we are and begin to debate where we need to head. And we hope this summit will help generate a healthy debate, because we truly believe that the best course is -- to arrive at the best answers -- is to have that debate.

It won't be easy, to state the obvious. I think we all know that we've inherited unprecedented budget deficits, and this has made all the more difficult the nearly unprecedented economic challenges the country is facing today.

So the problem will not be solved overnight. That's news to no one in this room.

But we want to be clear: As we take the steps that we must to get through the crisis we're in now, we will not lose sight of the long term. We will not lose sight of the need to tackle unmet needs for health care reform, to deal with the energy policy that we need, and so many others challenges that are going to determine what the 21 century looks like.

We must be direct with the American people about the budget difficulties and the choices we have to make, and we should be straightforward with them throughout this whole process.

I've always believed that in the toughest moments we are presented with the greatest opportunities as a nation. There is no question this is a very tough moment. But it's also a real opportunity to both put our economy back on track and restore fiscal responsibility. That's why we need all of you.
...

When the video becomes available you can judge for yourself, but this business of calling on opposition members on-camera and in real-time and letting them say whatever they wish? Starting with your bitterest rival? Taking the time to e-x-p-l-a-i-n things? Making sure the process was open, all the stakeholders had a place at the table, and afterward the spotlight was available to anyone who wanted to speak up?

Amazing.

Of course if you've been to any sort of corporate or policy "summit" before (and I have attended far more than my fair share of both), the trappings and methodology looked very familiar, but as a tool of governance and public dialogue, I haven't seen anything like it since I don't know when. And using it as a lead-in to his joint session of Congress national address tomorrow night -- where the President can now point out individual participants by face, name and comment to underscore the serious with which he takes the business of presiding over a democracy -- was especially inspired.

So a pretty damned good, substantive exercise in its own right, but when viewed against the backdrop of the kinds of preening, smirky, mumblefuck antics that passed for discourse during the previous Administration

it was positively masterful.

And so moving forward...

1. Because it has become metabolically incapable of processing real news and genuine discussions about policy, look for the the Mainstream Press to hype the event using its typical stock of Word Wrestling Federation-inflected descriptors.
2. Look for the wingnut media to describe it as everything from a "stunt" to a "failure".
3. Look for lot more of this from this White House over the next eight years.