The way I read that section - and the article as a whole - was that Obama believes the problem in Washington DC is that it doesn't let the elite technocrats do their jobs. If only people could just sit down, put aside the partisanship and the Fox News-influenced crap, then they could implement a sensible neoliberal agenda.

In other words, Obama sees DC as being fundamentally broken, but is totally misdiagnosing the cause.

I see this all the time here in California in discussions about how to fix this state's crisis. It's all about finding ways to reduce the limits on neoliberals' ability to implement their agenda. "Crisis" gets defined as "the 'center' can't govern."

And the world will live as one