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Bipartisan Obama? Color them skeptical

“What’s the catch?”

“Excuse me?”

“What’s the catch? What’s the angle?”

“I don’t know what you’re…”

“Obama. What’s he up to?”

“You mean besides getting ready to be sworn in?”

“The meetings! What’s with all the meetings? And right up here on the Hill?”

“Well…”

“This is our turf.”

“I guess he wants to hit the ground running. You know, on the stimulus package. And the Hill’s where the action’s gonna be.”

“I know that! But look who he’s meeting with! It’s not just his own folks—Pelosi, Reid, those guys. He had McConnell in there, too. And Boehner!”

“So?”

“So since when does a Democrat president sit down with Republicans to talk legislation?”

“Well, since there hasn’t been a Democrat president in eight years, there wouldn’t…”

“You know what I mean! Since when does any president sit down with the other side to talk legislation? You never saw Bush do that, did you?”

“Now that you mention it…”

“Hell, Bush never even talked to us! ‘My way or the highway,’ that guy.”

“And didn’t that work out well for everyone.”

“It’s a photo-op, right? Obama with our guys, I mean—all it is is a photo-op.”

“Maybe.”

“See? What did I tell you? We’re being played! We’re…”

“Or maybe not.”

“How’s that?”

“Well, he did put all those tax cuts in there—that’s something our side’s been pushing.”

“But what if that’s just so he can roll us on the rest of it? Do we even know what’s in the rest of it?”

“He said they’re still putting it together.”

“Of course he’d say that! That’s just what you’d expect him to say!”

“And he said he’s open to good ideas, wherever they come from.”

“Did you ever hear such a load of bull in your life? Nobody’s open to good ideas wherever they come from!”

“I’m just telling you what he said—he said neither side has a monopoly on good ideas, so he’s…”

“That’s the most—it’s not like he even needs our votes. He’s got enough Dems to push it through anyway!”

“Maybe he doesn’t want to push it through with just Dems. Maybe he’s trying to get a really big vote for it. A bipartisan vote.”

“Why? So he can blame it on us when it doesn’t work?”

“That’s certainly one possibility.”

“See?”

“But it’s not the only possibility.”

“Huh?”

“He might just mean it.”

“Don’t tell me they’ve even got you drinking the Kool-Aid!”

“Maybe he figures that with the economy in the toilet, it’s gonna take something big to pull us out. Something with everyone behind it—you know, on both sides of the aisle—to build confidence.”

“I don’t…”

“Something that says ‘We’re all in this together.’”

“My God! You actually believe him!”

“I don’t know if I believe him. I don’t know if I don’t believe him.”

“So how can you…”

“But I know that however we’ve been doing it doesn’t work.”

“So if it turns out he’s playing us?”

“I’ll be really disappointed.”

“See? See?”

“And if it turns out he isn’t?”

Rick Horowitz is a syndicated columnist. You can write to him at rickhoro@execpc.com.