Tuesday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

Big news day.

The President is hosting Congressional leaders at the White House this morning at 10:30 AM ET. The President is still seeking for bipartisanship. GOP leaders expect complete capitulation. McConnell and Boehner have an op-ed in today's Washington Post claiming that Obama and the Democrats must heed the message from the elections (or their interpretation of the message from the elections.) Funny how that wasn't the standard in 2008 when Obama won and Democrats secured huge margins in both houses of Congress. The GOP basically ignored any message from that election and set out to thwart progress -- and they did. After the meeting, there will be a mad rush to the microphones to get the spin war going.

Also, today, we'll finally see the Pentagon's DADT report. Secretary Gates and Admiral Mullen are holding a press conference on the report at 2:00 PM ET. So many members of Congress said they couldn't vote to end DADT until they saw the report. Now, they'll see the report and come up with new excuses. Time is running out. I am feeling like everyone is doing just enough to avoid blame if the DADT language doesn't pass. That includes the Obama administration, the Pentagon, Democratic Senate leaders and Senate GOP repeal supporters. The pressure is on to make this happen. Call your Senators: 202-224-3121. Two other things to note: Lady Gaga has re-engaged. Some may laugh at that, but she has over 7.2 million followers on twitter and almost 24 million fans on Facebook. And, we keep hearing that time is the biggest problem in the Senate. Yet, the Senate is probably going to spend three days next week debating the impeachment of a federal judge. Seriously.

That should keep us busy today.