Via Breitbart, sounds like the charm offensive worked. Ace says he would have gone too if asked, but the fact that attendees were sworn to secrecy (which is traditional, apparently) would have bugged me. Why meet with the president if you can’t report on it? The benefit to Obama’s obvious: By humanizing himself to his detractors, he takes the edge off their criticism. What’s the benefit to Will, Brooks, Noonan et al? An autographed photo with The One? The gratification of knowing that they’re officially part of the conservative illuminati? Arguably they’re there to represent right-wing opinion — really arguably in Brooks’s case — but (a) I think Obama’s familiar with the counterarguments to his policies by now and (b) theoretically we have congressmen for that.

I don’t know. Not a big deal, as everyone can relate to wanting to meet the president; I just hope it’s worth the aggravation they’ll get from parts of the grassroots who’ll question their objectivity vis-a-vis Obama going forward. On to happier subjects, though: At long last, after years of toil, today Andrew Sullivan got to meet his personal savior. I wonder if they swapped theories on who Trig’s real mom is.