First Press Conference

It's so nice to have an articulate president that is engaged and motivated to make America a better place.

Instantly classic quotes from the presser.

*This is an excellent quote rebuking the last 8 years of failed policies.

Prez Obama: "I'm happy to get good ideas from across the political spectrum, from Democrats and Republicans. What I won't do is return to the failed theories of the last eight years that got us into this fix in the first place, because those theories have been tested and they have failed. And that's part of what the election in November was all about."

*Another great quote about how we can possibly even be debating government's role:

Prez Obama: "Some of the criticisms really are with the basic idea that government should intervene at all in this moment of crisis. You have some people, very sincere, who philosophically just think the government has no business interfering in the marketplace. And in fact there are several who have suggested that FDR was wrong to intervene back in the New Deal. They're fighting battles that I thought were resolved a pretty long time ago."

* Has to be my favorite quote yet from President Obama. Ideological blockage? Classic!

Prez Obama: "When it comes to how we approach the issue of fiscal responsibility, again, it's a little hard for me to take criticism from folks, about this recovery package, after they presided over a doubling of the national debt. I'm not sure they have a lot of credibility when it comes to fiscal responsibility.... [W]hen I hear people just saying we don't need to do anything; this is a spending bill, not a stimulus bill, without acknowledging that by definition part of any stimulus package would include spending -- that's the point -- then what I get a sense of is that there is some ideological blockage there that needs to be cleared up."

I think the biggest "news" coming from the president's first presser was his insistence that his initial proposal for tax cuts made the GOP a little impotent (no pun intended). President Obama commented that maybe he should have let the Republicans come up with the tax cut idea first rather than him doing so. I think that's being too nice to the GOP. Once the most liberal person in American history proposes tax cuts that are deeper than anything the greatest president in history ever proposed, I can see how the Repubs were a little peeved about the whole thing. Oh well. They lost.