Obama balanced the scales yesterday by sitting down with 11 liberal commentators, including The Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson, syndicated columnist E.J. Dionne, Maureen Dowd and Frank Rich of the New York Times, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, CNN’s Roland Martin and a conservative — Atlantic blogger Andrew Sullivan — who strongly supported Obama. That meeting took place in the less intimate setting of Obama’s transition office, and lasted a little more than an hour. Both sessions were decreed off the record.