President Obama and Republican leaders, each eager to show that they can put aside partisanship, agreed yesterday that they had pinpointed a handful of areas -- most of them related to jobs creation -- where the two sides might be able to work together.
But as if to punctuate that the talk of bipartisanship goes only so far, Senate Republicans subsequently voted to block Obama's choice of Craig Becker, a labor lawyer, for the National Labor Relations Board. The move by Republicans served to raise the prospect that the White House would use a recess next week to place stalled nominees in executive-branch jobs.
After a meeting at the White House between the president and congressional leaders from both parties, both sides made clear that neither end of Pennsylvania Avenue seems ready to declare an end to political discord.
Within minutes of leaving the White House session, Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, the Republican leader, complained to reporters stationed outside that "the American people know that Washington has been on a spending binge for a year now." Boehner said he asked the president, "If you're serious about cutting spending, why don't we do it now?"
Obama, for his part, demonstrated that he could quickly quash the message from Republicans through his own bully pulpit. A mere 20 minutes after Boehner and Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate Republican leader, recounted how Republicans had been forced to the sidelines while Democrats hashed out their sweeping health-care bill, Obama trumped them with a surprise appearance before the reporters assembled in the White House briefing room.
"Being bipartisan cannot mean that Democrats give up everything they believe in, find the handful of things that Republicans have been advocating for, and we do those things, and then we have bipartisanship," Obama said. "That's not how it works, you know, in any other realm of life. That's certainly not how it works in my marriage with Michelle."
He called on Republicans to stop blocking his nominees for executive-branch jobs and said that if the Senate does not move forward on some by the end of the week, he might resort to using a constitutional provision allowing him to put nominees in their posts without a Senate confirmation vote during the Presidents Day recess scheduled next week. Those who receive recess appointments now could serve through 2011.
During their earlier meeting, the two sides did muster up some areas on which they said they could work together: trade policy, environmentally conscious jobs, nuclear power and offshore drilling.
Obama praised Republican leaders for showing up, even quipping that things went so well that Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, and McConnell were "out doing snow angels together on the South Lawn."
The jockeying between the White House and congressional Republicans is the latest performance of political theater that, in recent weeks, has been playing out in the public arena and before television cameras. On Sunday, Obama announced he would convene a half-day bipartisan health-care session at the White House to be televised live on Feb. 25, as part of a gambit to allow Americans to watch as Democrats and Republicans try to resolve their political impasse.
Yesterday's meeting was the first in what administration officials say will be monthly bipartisan sessions, which Obama called for in the State of the Union address.
Obama declared that "a sense of purpose that transcends petty politics" must be forged by Democrats and Republicans to address national problems.
Email
Facebook
Google
Twitter
Favorites
More
Advertisement