He saves the apologies for overseas trips.
DECORAH, Iowa — Hitting back against an emboldened GOP, President Barack Obama launched a rare direct attack Monday on the Republican presidential field, criticizing his potential 2012 rivals for their blanket opposition to any deficit-cutting compromise involving new taxes.
“That’s just not common sense,” Obama told the crowd at a town hall-style meeting in Cannon Falls, Minn., as he kicked off a three-day bus tour through Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois.
“You’ve got to be willing to compromise to move the country forward,” the president said later in the day as he delivered the same message at a town hall in Decorah, Iowa.
At the same time Obama was forced to defend his own record as Iowa voters asked him about all the compromises he’s made with the GOP.
“I make no apologies for being reasonable,” Obama declared as he stood in front of a cheery red barn, surrounded by bales of hay.
Flashback — January, 2009: “I won.”
(WSJ) — The top congressional leaders from both parties gathered at the White House for a working discussion over the shape and size of President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus plan. The meeting was designed to promote bipartisanship.
But Obama showed that in an ideological debate, he’s not averse to using a jab.
Challenged by one Republican senator over the contents of the package, the new president, according to participants, replied: “I won.”
The statement was prompted by Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl of Arizona, who challenged the president and the Democratic leaders over the balance between the package’s spending and tax cuts, bringing up the traditional Republican notion that a tax credit for people who do not earn enough to pay income taxes is not a tax cut but a government check.