I was certain Barack Obama was just a slim guy in a nice suit with a good marketing campaign. Then he somehow got me on board. Then his actual presidency began, and he slowly lost me again. Now he's accepted the Republican's invitation to a Q&A, spanked them on TV, and won me over again (tentatively).

After reading about this session and figuring any backbone he showed was purely a pose to make up for drooping poll numbers, I didn't expect much out of this meeting. Yesterday I finally saw it on MSNBC, though, and I have to give him credit: he actually came back at them with facts and force.

There were several great lines, but my favorite was, "Some of you have gone to ribbon cuttings for projects you voted against!" Another was, "If you think we can erase this deficit while issuing a tax cut, I'd like to see your math." He also welcomed anyone who thought they could disprove the advice of a team of economists to rise and be counted. No one even blinked. A final great line, "Have you ever noticed the wasteful spending is always in someone else's district, not your own?"

On that last point, even Rudy Giuliani has conceded that the rants against "pork barrel spending" are just ridiculous political theater. Giuliani said that was the name of the game, to go to Washington and bring as much of the cash as you could back to your district for for your people. Kinda makes you wonder what we're griping about so much.

It's great that Obama stood up against the lies of the right wing propaganda machine. Now let's see him give us some actual progress truths to crow about.