One of the stranger sub-memes to fly around Washington in awhile is the new conservative rewrite of the story surrounding President Obama’s televised appearance before House Republicans at their annual policy retreat back in January. Colloquially dubbed “question time,” the event has taken on a cult status among progressives, who see the session as basically a long sequence of Obama kicking Republican rhetorical butt.
Conservatives, apparently, are still smarting from the episode and have begun to misremember it. At the time, Republicans were practically goading Obama into coming to Baltimore to address their retreat, and were extremely excited when he agreed to appear. Republican Representatives in the audience tweeted their followers, urging them to tune into C-SPAN and watch what was to become a defining moment of Obama’s presidency when, seemingly from off the cuff, he aced Republican question after Republican question (at least in the eyes of his supporters).
But as Republicans gear up for another high-profile meeting with Obama — this time, the so-called Slurpee Summit post-election dinner scheduled for Nov. 30 at the White House — conservatives have begun to pretend that the drubbing observers said Republicans took the last time around wasn’t their fault.
Here’s an example, courtesy of the Washington Examiner‘s Mark Tapscott. On MSNBC this morning, Tapscott was asked about why the Slurpee Summit was moved from its original date on Thursday until after the Thanksgiving break.
Tapscott said part of the reason was Republicans still feeling upset about the time Obama “showed up uninvited” to the “Baltimore meeting in 2007.” One of these statements is true: the meeting was in Baltimore. But Obama was very clearly and very publicly invited (and the meeting actually took place in January 2010).
Watch Tapscott:
