Obama @ Republican Retreat

Obama spoke and answered questions at the Republican retreat recently. I don't have the time or patience for a thorough analysis, but here are some talking points:

• He is using the idea of "rise above this" and "work together" to mean "do it my way"
• "good ideas" seem to be, by definition, ideas that he likes
• He dodges a lot of questions, including, "What should we tell our constituents when we've presented many solutions to health care, but they hear from you that we are not presenting alternatives?"
  
• He panders to his audience, complimenting for example a person's family, then uses that to gain political points later on
• He denies that he is an ideologue, but then fails to recognize that the differences in health care strategies are largely idealogical. E.G. small gov vs big gov, gov intrusion vs choice