Presumably with a straight face, President Obama said Monday night that Democratic leaders in Congress are “not ideological.”

Speaking at a fundraiser for Senate Democrats while vacationing on Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, Mr. Obama said people such as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, are not to blame for partisan gridlock.

“If you look at the leadership of Democrats in both the House and the Senate, they’re not ideological, they’re not proposing radical solutions,” Mr. Obama said. “They are common sense. They are pragmatic. That’s how we got health care passed. That’s why we’ve been able to make progress on an issue like climate change.”

If you guessed that Mr. Obama blamed Republicans in Congress, you guessed right.

“What’s preventing us from getting things done right now is you’ve got a faction within the Republican Party that thinks solely in terms of their own ideological purposes and solely in terms of how do they hang on to power,” Mr. Obama said. “And that’s a problem. And that’s why I need a Democratic Senate.”

He said Democrats must hold the Senate because “we’re going to have Supreme Court appointments,” as well as other issues.

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