President Obama said that he is expecting Republicans to offer him more cooperation after November's elections, no matter the outcome.

In an hour-long interview with Times White House correspondent Peter Baker, Mr. Obama predicted that his political rivals will either be chastened by falling short of their electoral goals or burdened with the new responsibility that comes from achieving them.

“It may be that regardless of what happens after this election, they feel more responsible, either because they didn't do as well as they anticipated, and so the strategy of just saying no to everything and sitting on the sidelines and throwing bombs didn't work for them,” Mr. Obama said. “Or they did reasonably well, in which case the American people are going to be looking to them to offer serious proposals and work with me in a serious way.”

The president's comments are reported in an in-depth assessment of Mr. Obama's first two years in office, which appears in the Times Magazine this Sunday.
In the article, which is based on interviews with nearly two dozen of the president's advisers in addition to the president himself, Mr. Baker offers a series of inside details about Mr. Obama's time in the White House, including the following:

* According to his wife, First Lady Michelle Obama, Mr. Obama is not particularly fond of the presidential retreat at Camp David. Mrs. Obama reports that her husband, a longtime resident of Chicago, is more at ease in an urban setting.

* Pete Rouse, Mr. Obama's new chief of staff, bet deputy chief of staff Jim Messina $400 that he would be gone from the White House by the end of this year. Mr. Messina predicted that Mr. Rouse would stay well beyond that date.

* Mr. Obama — unlike most of his senior staff — does not have an iPad. Asked why, he said: “Because I have an iReggie,” a reference to his personal aide, Reggie Love.

In the magazine article, Mr. Obama reflects on his presidency, admitting that he let himself look too much like “the same old tax-and-spend Democrat,” realized too late that “there's no such thing as shovel-ready projects” and perhaps should have “let the Republicans insist on the tax cuts” in the stimulus.

https://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/201 ... -and-back/

Krasnodar wrote:CW : Engaging in wanton materialistic greed, are we ? Report to the zampolit immediately. I'll escort you to make sure you don't get "lost" on the way .....

“It may be that regardless of what happens after this election, they feel more responsible, either because they didn't do as well as they anticipated, and so the strategy of just saying no to everything and sitting on the sidelines and throwing bombs didn't work for them,” Mr. Obama said. “Or they did reasonably well, in which case the American people are going to be looking to them to offer serious proposals and work with me in a serious way.”

Comrade Whoopie wrote:No thanks Betinov, I learned my lesson. No more risky investment schemes for me. Obama said he's still going to sneak through Cap-n-Trade legislation by breaking it up and passing it piecemeal so I'm gonna double down on my green energy investments and start shorting oil and natural gas futures. I'll be rich in no time, just you watch and see.

Even as I speak un-named Party officials of the highest order are putting this plan into effect with the approval of the People's Director.

Groucho Marxist wrote:I was promised the first post racial presidency, gitmo closing, free healthcare, bailouts, no more than 8% unemployment, transparency, and now, I'm told there really isn't a shovel?

What is the truth? Etc, etc, etc. Crying and whining and whining and crying.