At Dinner Tables, a Restless Obama Finds an Intellectual Escape - NYTimes.com

"As Mr. Obama once said about the Senate Republican leader from Kentucky: “Some folks still don’t think I spend enough time with Congress. ‘Why don’t you get a drink with Mitch McConnell?’ they ask. Really? Why don’t you get a drink with Mitch McConnell?”

Valerie Jarrett, the White House senior adviser, who has been asked by the president to organize some of the dinners, was more diplomatic. The president, she told reporters recently, “could talk to the same people all day long, every day, and so he has to make a deliberate effort to expand that.”

“It keeps life interesting,” she added. “It keeps him fresh. It gives him new ideas to think about.”