House minority leader John Boehner started his press conference on January 15 sounding like a teenage girl who had just found out that her boyfriend like totally hooked up with her best friend.

"Oh. My. God."

Before he continued, Boehner glanced at the talking points prepared for his statement on the $825 billion stimulus package proposed by Democrats in the House of Representatives. "My notes here say that I'm disappointed." He was looking for something stronger. "I just can't tell you how shocked I am at what we're seeing. It's clear that they're moving on this path along the flawed notion that we can borrow and spend our way to prosperity."

Boehner asked how NASA was going to spend $400 million fighting global warming, if ACORN would qualify for community development grants, and whether federal money should be used for waterslides. He wondered why taxpayers were providing handouts to universities with billion-dollar endowments.

"I want to know how digital TV coupons are going to stimulate our economy," he said, pointing out a Democratic proposal to help citizens who still watch television using an antenna convert to digital next month. "I just read last week that 94 percent of the people who needed a converter for their digital--to receive their digital signal--had already gotten it. And so if there's only 6 percent of American TVs that still need these, how could we possibly spend $650 million on this?" It's a good argument. How indeed?

Boehner saved his greatest outrage for last, though. With their proposal, House Democrats are apparently failing to support Barack Obama's efforts to change Washington.

It's an interesting strategic play. Obama has certainly given many indications over the course of this transition that he would like to govern as a centrist. And congressional Democrats, a very liberal bunch, have expressed their concerns, often publicly. So Boehner, leader of a very conservative group of House Republicans, declares that Obama is promising change he can believe in.

"The president-elect really does want to change the way Washington works," Boehner explained to the small gathering of reporters.

While congressional Democrats are calling for the "same-old, same-old," he said, the new president offers hope for a new tone in Washington. "We're going to work with him to try to prove that Washington can work differently, because in this time of economic anxiety the American people expect us to work together."

Does Boehner actually believe what he's saying?

He seems to. He provided similar assurances to me two days earlier in his office at the Capitol. "The president has made it pretty clear that he wants to work with us," Boehner said. "I've talked to him several times. I've talked to his staff a number of times. And I truly do believe he's sincere about this."

It is the kind of hopeful bipartisan talk you would expect from Susan Collins, a moderate Republican senator from a state Obama won by 23 points, or Chuck Hagel, the retired Republican senator whose pseudo-centrism has made him a favorite on the Sunday talk shows. But John Boehner? If he leads in this direction, will his caucus follow?

And what about Senate Republicans? In an interview in his Capitol Hill office on Friday, I asked minority leader Mitch McConnell if he shares Boehner's optimism. The Kentucky Republican said that he, too, had found his early interactions with Obama "impressive" and gave the Obama team "good marks for openness, candor. But in the end," he says, "they will get Republican votes if they adopt Republican policies."

He added:

I think the key to getting Republican support for initiatives is not just candor and openness and accessibility--they've so far done a great job on that--but how far in the end they're willing to go from a policy point of view.