Today there was a much (on the left) ballyhooed picture of President Bush talking with with Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and other conservative talk show hosts in the Oval Office.

Of course this isn’t rocket science why this happened. A smart move with combined all the hosts reach over 20 million listeners weekly and thats without Rush Limbaugh who gets another 20 milllion on his own.

Of course the reason the President asked them all in is the same reason President Clinton frequently had major network news big shots invited to parties and even a few slept in in the Lincoln bedroom.

The reason is that in politics you go where your support base is and conservative talk radio has a hugh base of conservative listeners. A feat that democrats simply can’t counter. Their best shot was Air America which never got out of the basement and recently filed Chapter 11. Forget the fact the programming offerered little more than juvenile porn and mock assasinations of President Bush, nothing that is ever going to work with the vast majority of Americans. Fact is that nobody listened because it sucked.

Still you have the predictable retort from the left.

Joe Gandelman of the so-called Moderate Voice opines:

“You have to ask yourself: who ever would have thought 30 years ago that talk radio would evolve into where three hour “shows” would essentially become propaganda strips for political parties ‚Äî and if the hosts wavered from the party line the President would meet with them to get them back “on message?”"

Except that Joe like a lot of the lefty blogs criticizing this meeting failed to read the article which accompanied the picture clearly saying that those who were in the room with Bush had been the most critical of him, from Harriett Miers to Dubai, to even his less than conservative spending habits.

Of course to Gandelman and the rest of the left it’s Bush trying to “get his people back in line”, which is laughable if it weren’t for it’s error.

Exhibit One:

“You then have to ask some self-evident questions such as: why wouldn’t the President also meet and make his best case to more centrist radio talk show hosts (if they exist)? Or talk show hosts identified as progressives? Answer: because they don’t already largely agree with him, and might ask questions he and his advisers don’t like or take something unflattering from the meeting and mention it on the air.

Yeah, and that Clinton/Chris Wallace interview was a real love fest. Notice that Clinton - after repeated requests will NOT appear on Hannity and Colmes? What politician opens themselves up to a hostile crowd?

Reality check over. This was was a good move, and a smart move and yes it might just work.

So spare me the sour grapes.