The verdict was in on Twitter even while President Obama’s second question-and-answer session in the last week was still ongoing: It was a bust.
“I don’t think a D on D #QuestionTime works as well. Feels too staged. U also may need a random way to select questioners,” wrote Nate Silver, a political statistician at fivethirtyeight.com.
Obama met with Senate Democrats at the Newseum in Washington on Wednesday, a follow-up to his question-and-answer session with House Republicans in Baltimore on Friday.
The consensus among many journalists and new media savants was that the oppositional nature of last week’s session provoked a much more interesting dialogue.
“This Q&A was a lot more boring than the last Q&A,” wrote Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein.
The fact that five of the six Democrats who asked questions are up for reelection in November did not go unnoticed either.
“Takeaway from obama sen dems meeting: new transparency. It’s transparent that this was forum for vulnerable dems 2 campaign,” wrote CNN’s Dana Bash.
And liberal bloggers were irritated by what they saw as lots of talk but no action.
“Sorry, but this #QuestionTime session is a bit too meta — ‘we should do this, America wants that …’ Just get it done Dems,” wrote Peter Daou, a Democratic political and new media consultant.
Matt Yglesias, a blogger on policy and politics at ThinkProgress, agreed: “Senate Dems needed more real talk.”
Read a transcript of the president’s Q&A with Senate Democrats here.