Yesterday, Barack Obama met a group of five progressive bloggers at the White House. Obama has had some trouble getting his progressive base energized for the election, and so he wanted to personally reassure them that he considered himself an old-fashioned progressive:

President Obama told liberal blogger Oliver Willis he considers himself a progressive, Willis said after a meeting between the president and five progressive bloggers at the White House.

While nearly every member of the White House press corps also blogs, as do many of the favored columnists Obama has met with episodically during his time in office, this was the first meeting between Obama and this particular group of progressive bloggers and was being hailed on blogs as a sign the president is taking pains to reach out to the Democratic Party’s liberal base.

Also attending the meeting were Joe Sudbay of AMERICABlog, Barbara Morrill (better known by her handle, BarbinMD) of DailyKos, John Amato of Crooks & Liars, Duncan “Atrios” Black of eschaton and Willis of the eponymous OliverWillis.com.

That’s odd, thought Daniel Foster at National Review — didn’t Obama tell the other wing of the Democratic Party that he was one of them, too? Indeed, nineteen months ago:

President Barack Obama firmly resists ideological labels, but at the end of a private meeting with a group of moderate Democrats on Tuesday afternoon, he offered a statement of solidarity.

“I am a New Democrat,” he told the New Democrat Coalition, according to two sources at the White House session.

The group is comprised of centrist Democratic members of the House, who support free trade and a muscular foreign policy but are more moderate than the conservative Blue Dog Coalition.

Hey, by next week, he could be a Republican.

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