[oldembed src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GsSXMT0NrB4" width="425" height="319" resize="1" fid="21"]
'See? Here's a signed document!'

This is both puzzling and upsetting. Does President Obama really believe this? The silver lining, I guess, is that the Republican leadership may refuse to pass the Catfood Commission plan just to spite him:

President Obama promises in a major new interview that Americans weary of partisan gridlock that Washington will be much more compromise-friendly if he wins a second term in the White House.

In an interview with the Associated Press published Saturday, Obama says Republicans hell-bent on shutting down his agenda will be more willing to play ball if he’s re-elected.

Dear sweet Jesus. What is wrong with this man? How many times does he have to try to kick the football before he understands what Lucy is doing?

He said two changes — the facts that “the American people will have voted,” and that Republicans will no longer need to be focused on beating him — could lead to better conditions for deal-making.If Republicans are willing, Obama said, “I’m prepared to make a whole range of compromises” that could even rankle his own party. But he did not get specific.

He doesn't have to. We already know he wants to cut Medicare and Social Security.

Obama painted a picture of the GOP that’s very different from the party in control of the House today. On the campaign trail, Obama has made Republican intransigence a central theme,especially after House Budget Committee leader Paul Ryan joined Mitt Romney’s ticket.

The president does not cast his opponents as the type of Republicans who are willing to compromise. On issues from abortion to taxes, Obama told the AP Romney has taken “extreme positions” that voters must assume will be part of his legislative agenda. The interview was conducted Thursday, one day before Romney made a birth certificate joke on the campaign trail, a move Obama’s campaign said shows Romney has “embraced the most strident voices in his party instead of standing up to them.”

Obama told the AP Romney owns the positions he’s espoused, even if he personally doesn’t agree with them.“I can’t speak to Gov. Romney’s motivations,” he said. “What I can say is that he has signed up for positions, extreme positions, that are very consistent with positions that a number of House Republicans have taken. And whether he actually believes in those or not, I have no doubt that he would carry forward some of the things that he’s talked about.”

There is major cognitive dissonance here. He sees Romney (and thus, the Republican party) as extreme -- but not if he's reelected. So he doesn't think the Republicans will be posturing for the midterms? Oy. This is really disturbing stuff.

And even Nancy Pelosi thinks he's wrong.

Pelosi noted that the president’s job requires him to keep some distance from the partisan fray, but she repeated that he shouldn’t stake his agenda on Republican attitudes changing.

“I see this president sit for hours being very respectable, but trying to find a path where there could be agreement when there is [none],” she said. “‘Never. Does never work for you?’ That’s really what they’re saying to the president.”

Instead of heading to the negotiating table, Pelosi suggested that Obama focus on rallying public opinion as a means to force Republicans’ hands.

“Public sentiment is everything,” she said. “It’s not a question of trying to persuade or outflank them, you just have to take it to the American people.”