Posted on 01/14/2009 9:47:56 AM PST by Sub-Driver
Conservatives sworn to dinner secrecy By: Jonathan Martin January 14, 2009 12:40 PM EST
Call it a charm offensive or a high-level “Listening Tour,” but Barack Obama is already signaling that he intends to break with the current president in one obvious way: hearing from his critics.
Obama Tuesday night trekked to the Chevy Chase, Md., home of conservative columnist George F. Will to talk politics and get to know some of his fiercest intellectual adversaries: Charles Krauthammer, William Kristol, Larry Kudlow, David Brooks, Rich Lowry, Peggy Noonan, Michael Barone, and Paul Gigot.
The two-and-half-hour dinner, which came at Will’s request, is only the first get-together between the president-elect and Washington’s opinion-makers. Wednesday morning he met with prominent columnists and liberal commentators, including the New York Times’ Frank Rich and Maureen Dowd and the Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne.
The right-leaning attendees were largely mum over what was discussed over the lamb chops at Will’s table, pledging fealty to off-the-record ground rules and hoping that the Democrat may again extend an olive branch if he knows his company can keep confidence. They were Obama’s ground rules, but Will swore his guests to secrecy.
“You can’t have these kinds of meetings if everybody reports on them,” said one attendee, who suggested that President Bush may have received more sympathy had he held similar session with liberal writers.
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
Imagine an intellectual conversation between Obama and...lets see...Mark Steyn...or...Thomas Sowell.
Could you really call it an intellectual conversation, when the intellectual part comes from one person, and the other person says "well...ummmmm....ya know...ummm...ummm...ummm....well...ya know...ummm"?
Nice. So much for an open and transparent administration. The new ‘Mr. “I Hate America” President’ is getting a kid gloves treatment that any other President-elect would be ashamed to ask for much lest expect.
Where does that leave us? Compromised, betrayed, disappointed, etc. Guess it all has nothing to do with US.
Was this the meeting that Limbaugh and Gallagher were summoned to? I haven’t seen why they were suddenly called to Washington, but then I haven’t been on FR all day either. So excuse the ring if it’s already posted!
They hate all of us.
LLS
LLS
Mostly a collection of toothless paper tigers, especially Noonan who has really left the reservation.
The only way two men can keep a secret is if one of them is dead.
It could have been.
But what does Limbaugh have to lose by saying that he was at the dinner party? His listeners aren’t gonna hate him for it.
And he meets with McCain so that makes him “bi-partisan”.
Conservatives...laughable for most of these.
I’m sorry, but I saw that list and could not see one Conservative there, all I saw were a bunch of RINO trash
“These are not the Conservatives I thought I knew.”
Maybe we need a “Road Kill Express” Bus of our own!
I think we should all be wary of any closed door meeting in Washington between BHO and ‘conservatives’.
These meetings can ONLY benefit BHO and confer upon him an air of acceptance and legitmacy.
BHO has nothing to lose. And why was there this commitment to secrecy? Why can’t our so-called conservative leaders in DC discuss with us grassroots folks what actually happened at this meeting? It certainly does not build trust.
Now if Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity announced they were going to Washington and meet with BHO to discuss their concerns about the Fairness Doctrine, that I would accept.
All Americans should be distrustfull of secret meetings in Washington. It generally means someone is getting screwed.
You are probably right.
DITTO
Gagging on the irony of that statement.
Open borders Medved?
What’s for dinner? RINO!
Misprint. Should read "along with aides Peggy Noonan and David Brooks".
Peggy Noonan is a conservative? Since when? Obama has not been keeping up.
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