Obama will win votes for his stimulus package the old fashioned way: by getting lawmakers drunk.

This is our new presidents' greatest advantage over the last loser: he drinks! Probably in moderation, but he does drink. When he invites "two dozen key members of Congress" to the White House this evening for cocktails, he'll share in those cocktails. Sure, Bush could've joined them in a non-alcoholic beer, but no one enjoys drinking with a reformed alcoholic. It'd be an awkward, stilted evening. No laughs, no camaraderie, no eventual singalongs to Tom Petty courtesy John Boehner's iPod.

Yes, we finally have a president who can drink, like a grownup, with other grownups.

The stimulus bill may be watered down with pointless sops to right-wingers whose votes it doesn't need to pass, but the drinks will once again be strong.