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Obama Goes To GOP Lions' Den -- And Mauls The Lions
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/29/obama-goes-to-the-gop-lio_n_442331.html
First Posted: 01-29-10 03:12 PM | Updated: 01-29-10 05:39 PM
President Obama traveled to a House Republican retreat in Baltimore on Friday and delivered a performance that was at once defiant, substantive and engaging. For roughly an hour and a half, Obama lectured GOP leaders and, in a protracted, nationally-televised question-and-answer session, deflected their policy critiques, corrected their misstatements and scolded them for playing petty politics. (Full video and transcript available HERE.)
White House officials told the Huffington Post they were absolutely ecstatic. MSNBC's Luke Russert, who was on the scene in Baltimore, relayed that a Republican official and other GOP aides had confided to him that allowing the "cameras to roll like that" was a "mistake."
So effective was the president that Fox News cut away from the broadcast 20 minutes before it ended.
It was the type of performance that Obama's supporters have long demanded and that his own aides have been eager to deliver. The question-and-answer session at the end wasn't initially supposed to be broadcast, but the White House pressured GOP leadership to bring the cameras in. They knew the optics it would generate, a source with knowledge of the planning relayed. Hours before the event began, Republican leaders finally relented.
What resulted was what one Democratic strategist described as "amazing theater" -- certainly for cable news. Standing on a stage, looking down at his Republican questioners, Obama assumed the role of responsible adult to the GOP children, or, at the very least, of a college professor teaching and lecturing a room full of students.
He chastised Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) for calling his economic agenda radical and poked fun at the GOP's own platform. "I am not an ideologue, I'm not," he said. "It doesn't make sense if somebody could tell me, 'You could do this cheaper and get increased results,' then I would say, 'Great.' The problem is, I couldn't find credible economists who could back up the claims that you just made."
He rebuked a questioner who insisted that the monthly deficit is higher now than Bush's annual deficit. "That's factually just not true," he said. "And you know it's not true." He lampooned Republican lawmakers seated in front of him for portraying his health care legislation as "some Bolshevik plot." He mocked Republicans for railing against the stimulus package and then showing up at "the ribbon-cuttings for some of these important projects in your communities." And he did it all while calling for "a tone of civility instead of slash and burn will be helpful."
Whether it was chutzpah, political savvy, or both, it certainly was refreshing. Reporters were thrilled with the British Parliament-style exchange between president and lawmakers. The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder asked that forums like these be held monthly. The Nation's Chris Hayes suggested Obama next go before the progressive caucus. Ezra Klein of the Washington Post labeled it "the most compelling political television I've seen...maybe ever. NBC's Chuck Todd added: "The president should hold Congressional 'town halls' more often. Public needs to see this if they'll ever trust Washington again."
From the narrower vantage point of the White House, the event also made for effective politics, spurring some comparisons to the type of political engagement relished by former President Bill Clinton.
"Most people thinking about this would have thought 'ooh Obama is going into the lion's den," said Dee Dee Myers, Clinton's former press secretary. "But there was a great opportunity to jujitsu that. On one level it looked brave but on another he was the substitute teacher there, lecturing the audience.
"A lot of us have been waiting for that moment, a little more fight, a little more politics," she added. "He is in a political business and he has to pay attention to not just the substance but the politics."
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And his remarks are supposed to help us all lock arms and skip down the yellow brick road.................right?
He tried to ram his health care ideas through congress without the support of the GOP and what happened?
Now he wants to hug and make nice....well it is a tad to late now.
Oh and ask yourself, Ronnie, Bush, Clinton, and Bush all worked with a congress controlled by the opposition party - why can't NObama?
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Oh and ask yourself, Ronnie, Bush, Clinton, and Bush all worked with a congress controlled by the opposition party - why can't NObama?
Because this is the first time in history that any political party decided that their main job as members of Congress is to be obstructionists and to slow legislation as much as possible.
Never before in history have so many members of a political party introduced amendments and proposed ideas and then voted against them only because the opposing party agreed with them.
This is why the GOP is now called "the party of NO!"
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maxedout1 (2/2/2010)
it was if anything at all a nicely staged event which allowed Obama to act like the White (sorry) in shining Armor
Well... that comment certainly explains a lot.
***
and came across as a winning horse
at a losing horse race.
if anything at all he has killed the Health Bill..
still left the unemployed question unanswered and his latest home based events happening away from the wars in this world have kept the losing focus off of Iran Iraq and Afghanistan.
How fucking convenient.
Eight years of swinging the wrecking ball is not going to be fixed in one year - no matter how "Magic" y'all thought he was. The magic pixie dust just doesn't work that way.
Next, the court case about to happen in NYC will be changed to Gitmo again.
Just one of the things that I do not like about Obama.
He has no fucking guts.
So now you're saying y'all WANT the court case in NYC? Damn, need a program to keep up with the shift in Beck and Limbaugh talking points.
This is why the GOP has earned the name "the party of NO!" - no matter what decision President Obama makes, y'all are going to jump to the other side. When he does something that you USED to WANT him to do, suddenly it's the wrong thing to do.
Whatever he does, y'all are going to bitch about it.
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Jon Stewart's got it right AGAIN. (Watch the video at the link, it's funny as hell)
*****
Stewart blasts Fox for cutting off Obama-GOP debate
By Raw Story
Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010 -- 11:54 am
Comedy Central's Jon Stewart hammered Fox News -- again -- Monday night for cutting off debate between President Barack Obama and House Republicans last week.
"We're going to cut away," Stewart said, mocking Fox, "because this is against the narrative we present."
On Friday, weaving between pleas for bipartisanship and direct criticism of GOP politicking, the president took Republicans to task for voting against last year's stimulus package and then attending "ribbon cuttings" for projects funded by it.
"A lot of you have gone to ribbon cuttings for the same projects that you voted against," Obama said. "I say all this not to re-litigate the past, but it's simply to state, the component parts of the recovery act are consistent with what many of you say are important things to do."
Obama touched repeatedly on the theme that, in opposing his policies, Republicans at times oppose things that are in line with their ideology. Among those things, Obama argued, are his proposed fee on banks and a freeze on discretionary spending.
"Join me" in passing the spending freeze, Obama asked the GOP, adding there's "nothing in this proposal that runs contrary to the ideological predisposition of this caucus."
On the proposed bank fee, designed to recoup some of the money the US government lost in bailing out the banks in 2008, Obama told House Minority Leader John Boehner: "If you listen to the American people, John, they’ll tell you they want their money back."
And in very frank language, Obama warned the GOP they are painting themselves into a political corner by using strong rhetoric in opposing White House ideas.
"If the way these issues are being presented by the Republicans is that this is some wild-eyed plot to impose huge government in every aspect of our lives, what happens is you guys don't have a lot of room to negotiate with me," the president said. "The fact is that many of you, if you voted with the administration on something, are politically vulnerable with your own base in your own party. You've given yourselves very little room to work in a bipartisan fashion because what you've told your constituents is this guy is doing all kinds of crazy stuff that's gonna destroy America."
http://rawstory.com/2010/02/stewart-blasts-fox-cutting-obamagop-debate/
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Because this is the first time in history that any political party decided that their main job as members of Congress is to be obstructionists and to slow legislation as much as
That is a lie - Ronnie had to deal with an unfriendly congress AND.let's no forget - several key GOP members helped forward teh Dem's health care bill along. why couldn't the dems (with a huge majority) pass their own legislation? so i guess NObama can't work with either the dems or the gop.
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maxedout1 (2/2/2010)
I am not y'all, get that into your stinking head and speak English
I am 'one'..what they all think is their problem.
I left out the word Knight..a crime it is 'y'all'..
OH GET OVER YOURSELF! I wasn't just speaking to or about YOU.
"Y'all", according to Merriam-Webster (that's an English dictionary btw) is used as a pronoun, mainly in the southern United States, and is short for "you all".
Examples:
Plural - It doesn't take much reading on these boards to realize that some of Y'ALL (you all) are swimming in the shallow end of the gene pool.
Singular - If YOU don't like the way I speak, YOU are cordially invited to bite my shiny white southern hiney.
Sorry, I'd break it down further for you but I don't speak moron.
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SlutPup (2/2/2010)
Because this is the first time in history that any political party decided that their main job as members of Congress is to be obstructionists and to slow legislation as much as
That is a lie - Ronnie had to deal with an unfriendly congress AND.let's no forget - several key GOP members helped forward teh Dem's health care bill along. why couldn't the dems (with a huge majority) pass their own legislation? so i guess NObama can't work with either the dems or the gop.
The Democrats during Reagan's time didn't dig in their heels and say "NO" to everything. They actually tried to work with him. They didn't propose or co-sponsor amendments and bills and then turn around and vote no for the very legislation they proposed. They actually wanted to get some work done.
The Democrats now still make the mistake of thinking that if they go along with Republicans and hand them whatever they want, Republicans will work with them to get legislation passed.
Progressives have been pushing them for a few years now to get our point across - that moving to the right is not what we meant by "change", and that Republicans will do whatever they can to muck up the machinery, then will come back at election time and blame the Democrats for all of the things that did NOT get done.
They're going to drag their feet every chance they get, because winning an election is much more important to them than serving the good of the general populace.
Some of the Democrats are finally starting to catch on - but we're not quite there yet.
We will be.
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| And if you will go back and take and HONEST adn OPEN view of things - you'll see the GOP was shut out of the process. it is not that we're the party of no, it's that up until now - the DEMS didn't listen to what we had to say and now they're whining and crying foul. well booo fucking hoooooo.
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SlutPup (2/3/2010)
And if you will go back and take and HONEST adn OPEN view of things - you'll see the GOP was shut out of the process. it is not that we're the party of no, it's that up until now - the DEMS didn't listen to what we had to say and now they're whining and crying foul. well booo fucking hoooooo.
That's a common whine with the Beck/Limbaugh crowd - and it's absolutely false.
There were amendments sponsored and co-sponsored by Republicans, many of which made it into the Senate and House versions of the bill.
In the Senate alone, there were 160 Republican amendments approved - and yet, when the final vote came, not a single Republican voted for the bill.
Of course some of their amendments did NOT make it in, a percentage of that because some of the Republicans kept changing their votes as a way to stall the legislation.
Bill Kristol predicted in 1993 that if Democrats passed health care reform, the Republicans would be out of office for at least a decade.
Some Republican members of Congress declared at the beginning of debate on the current proposed legislation that they would do everything they could to stop health care reform from happening. They called it "Obama's waterloo"
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