“if that’s the standard by which we are measuring success or core principles, then let’s face it - we’ll never get anything done.  people will have the satisfaction of having a purist position and no victories for the american people.  and we’ll be able to feel good about ourselves and sanctimonious about how pure our intentions are or how tough we are, and in the meantime, the american people are still seeing themselves not able to get health insurance because of a pre-existing condition or not being able to pay their bills because their unemployment insurance ran out.  that can’t be the measure of how we think about our public service.” - president obama

i’m not really expecting any of you to watch a 32-minute video of obama’s press conference today, but if you have some time to spare, i highly recommend it.  if you don’t have that much time - fast forward to 25:00 to listen to obama’s answer to the last question of the press conference.

the past few weeks i’ve been feeling REALLY down about the political news i’ve been reading.  republicans grandstanding and signing secret memos and talk of extending bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy.  it’s been a really tough past few months to keep a positive perspective on things.

watching this press conference and hearing obama talk about compromise really put things into perspective for me.  i think we all could use a little perspective.