Obama at Townhall meeting in Elkhart

Part 1:



Part 2:



I concur with David Neiwert at C&L:

Anyone remember the Potemkin Village quality of George W. Bush's "town hall" appearances? How everyone was prescreened, and uncomfortable or difficult questions -- let alone questions posed by someone from the other side of the political aisle -- were never ever EVER asked?

Take the inspirational rhetoric with a grain of salt. First Obama needs to throw post-partisanship under the bus already. Jane Hamsher, most valuable for her seemingly rare ability to actually recognize that people act to further their own interests, has been beating that drum as long as anyone:

The administration assumed that Obama's overwhelming popularity, combined with a rapidly worsening economic crisis and a welcome mat for the GOP would be enough to push Republicans into a collaborative mode. It wasn't. They belatedly began calling the act the Economic Recovery Act, but it never caught on. The White House hailed the Nelson/Collins compromise because it creates "jobs jobs jobs," yet Krugman and others maintain that the changes they made significantly reduced job creation, with estimates ranging between 600,000 and 1.25 million jobs over the next two years. When Larry Summers was confronted with that charge on This Week he would not dispute it. Apologists like Claire McCaskill are left to tilt at straw men.

It least there is a small glimmer of hope that he may get banks right yet. One word: nationalize.

Obama followed up his speech at Elkhart with a press conference. His prepared remarks follow: