Obama and Republicans seemed reasonable. That's bad news for Democrats.

"That's what elections are for," he said at the end when contemplating what might happen if Democrats proceed without Republican support. "We have honest disagreements about a vision for the country, and we'll go ahead and test those out over the next several months till November." Of course, for the president, there isn't an election for more than two years. That scary fact didn't come up today, but it may explain some of the differences between the president and congressional Democrats.

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