We knew it wouldn’t be easy. We knew President Obama would make mistakes. Let’s make a quick assessment of where we are now.
First, you may have seen headlines that the popularity of the stimulus bill has tanked. Nate Silver says this is not so. It may have slipped a little in popularity, but a majority of the public still supports it.
Second, E.J. Dionne writes that President Obama is not fighting back hard enough against the hysterical and mostly frivolous and misleading charges being made by Republicans against the stimulus bill. I agree with this. Yes, the Daschle debacle threw the President off his game, but that was yesterday’s news. Now he has to start punching.
And lo, Peter Nicholas writes for the Los Angeles Times,
President Obama abruptly changed tactics Wednesday in his bid to revive the economy, setting aside his bipartisan stance and pointedly blaming Republicans for demanding what he cast as discredited “piecemeal measures.”
Obama’s comments were a marked departure from the conciliatory tone he has maintained as he courted Republican votes for his stimulus package through compromise. Against the wishes of his own party, Obama crafted a plan that relied heavily on tax cuts rooted in Republican economic doctrine.
As part of this counter-offensive, President Obama has written an op ed for today’s Washington Post.
In recent days, there have been misguided criticisms of this plan that echo the failed theories that helped lead us into this crisis — the notion that tax cuts alone will solve all our problems; that we can meet our enormous tests with half-steps and piecemeal measures; that we can ignore fundamental challenges such as energy independence and the high cost of health care and still expect our economy and our country to thrive.
I reject these theories, and so did the American people when they went to the polls in November and voted resoundingly for change. They know that we have tried it those ways for too long. And because we have, our health-care costs still rise faster than inflation. Our dependence on foreign oil still threatens our economy and our security. Our children still study in schools that put them at a disadvantage. We’ve seen the tragic consequences when our bridges crumble and our levees fail.
Every day, our economy gets sicker — and the time for a remedy that puts Americans back to work, jump-starts our economy and invests in lasting growth is now.
That’s good, but that message needs to be read to everyone in America.
Meanwhile, the executive cap idea is getting legs and endorsements by most people outside of Wall Street. I think this could be a very popular measure that Republicans oppose at their peril. The Los Angeles Times argues that it would help restore public confidence in the economy.
Finally, as Republicans still are tripping all over themselves to placate El Rushbo, Max Blumenthal says Limbaugh is one of the least liked people in America.
An October 24, 2008, poll conducted by the Democratic research firm Greenberg-Quinlan-Rosner has Rush Limbaugh enjoying a public-approval rating of just 21 percent among likely voters, while 58 percent have “cold†feelings toward the right-wing radio-talk-show host. Limbaugh was the least popular of the all the political figures the firm polled. He polls seven points lower than Rev. Jeremiah “God Damn America†Wright and eight points below former Weather Underground domestic terrorist William Ayers.
If the Democrats were smarter than I believe they are (alas), they’d be working overtime to make Rush a block of cement around the GOP’s feet.
Until I saw the line after the Obama WaPo op-ed quote I was going to say most don’t read WaPo but you said it. He needs to interrupt Lost or American Idol to reach middle America.
Oh, I did say it. OK, added it.
This disinclination to use the media as effectively as the GOP was bad enough when it was just house and senate Dems missing opportunities but I never expected it from Obama.
Eventually he will have to stop the mantra that reminds everyone about his election mandate and get some dirt under his nails by identifying specific points and dismissing them as ignorance, possibly even ridiculing or casting a very bright light on them and sparing the oblique talk and niceties…maybe refraining from talk of bipartisanship.
After all bipartisanship cannot come from just one side, by definition.
“If the Democrats were smarter than I believe they are (alas), they’d be working overtime to make Rush a block of cement around the GOP’s feet.”
It’s probably smarts too, but hell; I don’t think that there is a complete set of testicles between Reid and Pelosi genitalia combined.
The problem is not Obama or Pelosi–it is Reid. Obama should have been able to address other pressing matters until and unless the GOP actually filibustered the stimulus bill. Then he should have addressed the nation about how the GOP had caused the economy to tank and was now making sure it did not recover. Obama should not waste political capital trying to be bipartisan anymore than he should have wasted political capital on the crooks Daschle and Geithner. Reid is not Obama’s fault, but he may well condemn this country to Jimmy Carter all over again.
I’ve compared Obama’s role in this whole mess to that of an emergency room doctor. Save the patient first and worry about his obesity, high blood pressure…later. Obama seems to be the only ‘doctor’ on duty at the moment while the grousing bystanders can grouse all they want but in the end it’s not their ultimate responsibility (or obligation) to ‘save’ the patient.
As far as Rush goes? Got to know that probably a good-sized bulk of his devotees believe that Obama is the Antichrist because the winning lottery number in Illinois was 666. (Actually one-third of all evangelicals believe just that.)
I wrote this yesterday, and it goes double today:
Obama needs to take to the airwaves and explain the items that must stay in the stimulus bill. He needs to direct his remarks to the people who elected him, and explain why we need to convince our senators to pass the bill…. He needs to do this by pre-empting the first half hour of CSI or The Bachelor or whatever, with very little warning, to make sure we pay attention.
Yesterday I was being flippant about having the Muppets assist him. Today I think maybe I’m serious. It sure ain’t easy being green.
Yes, bring it to a vote – NOW!. Make them filibuster it, Harry. MAKE THEM FILIBUSTER!!!
Then, Obama can get on TV and tell the nation that the Republicans are holding things up and to contact their House and Senate members or else the nations economy will tank.
When the ‘what’s the matter with Kansas’ crowd calls their Congresscritter’s and asks, “What’s the matter with you?”, then, they may be scared enough to act.
In the meantime, where the #@$% are the Democrat’s on TV?
At the moment HuffPo has the headline “WHITE HOUSE DEPLOYS NEW STIMULUS WEAPON” above a photo of Michelle Obama. The story is mostly from Politico (home of the a**hole who harangued Obama when he popped into the WH press room just to say hello), so… huge grain of salt:
As she makes a “get-to-know-you” tour of federal agencies, [Michelle] Obama is using her considerable platform to amplify the message coming out of the White House: pass the stimulus plan, and pass it now. Meanwhile, President Barack Obama has ramped up his efforts as well, reaching out to Republicans one-on-one, doing back-to-back TV interviews and tapping his grassroots network through the Internet.
And from the Washington Post:
…There are a lot of cubicle-dwelling bureaucrats here, and yesterday they all wanted to see the most famous woman in the world. The Michelle Obama Federal Agency Tour made its second stop, at the huge headquarters of the Department of Housing and Urban Development in Southwest Washington. “She looks just like she does on television,” observed Robin Hawkins, one of about a thousand employees who lined hallways and pressed excitedly into an auditorium to welcome Mrs. Obama. “It was just the best feeling to see her up close in person.”
Hmmm… deep. Well, good luck to Michelle, although I’m unclear on how pitching to the federal agencies will help the stimulus.
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Hmmm… deep. Well, good luck to Michelle, although I’m unclear on how pitching to the federal agencies will help the stimulus.
Comment by joanr16 — February 5, 2009 @ 1:21 pm
Joan,
Are you stupid? She is using the occasion talk about stimulus package.
No one outside the Beltway and corporate news gives a damn about Tom Daschle. Just another rich white boy who failed to pay his taxes= yawn. some like to spin such stuff as failure, no just 1993 ism actually. We are told all day that the stimulus is full of pork and it probably is. I still want to see thoughtful environmental forward looking legislation but it is not coming. A roads bill just puts a few construction companies to work and does nothing to help the rest of us or the systemic problems created by 30 years of the wealthy stacking the deck.