I've been a big critic of Rahm Emanuel, but this is music to my ears:
Mr. Obama clearly sees his presidency as far more than a bully pulpit — he has cast himself as a last line of defense against market excesses that take many different forms. "In the past, corporate America was not only at the table, they owned the table and the chairs around it," Mr. Obama’s combative chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, said in an interview Thursday. "Obama doesn’t start off confrontational, but he will be confrontational if there is resistance to the notion that there are other equities."
NY Times
I like the honesty.
Mr. Obama’s aides clearly relished the idea of a Texas Republican dependent on donors from the energy industry who was actually apologizing to BP. As a political strategy, they appear to be adapting the course taken by Franklin D. Roosevelt, who seized on a mood of distrust when, in the closing days of the 1936 campaign, he said: "I should like to have it said of my first administration that in it the forces of selfishness and of lust for power met their match." When the applause subsided, he added: "I should like to have it said of my second administration that in it these forces met their master."
It is in the "master" role, however, that Mr. Obama and his advisers know he is on dangerous ground. He has responded to his critics by making the case that every time American business predicted ruin from government intervention — that "Social Security would lead to socialism, and that Medicare was a government takeover" — American capitalism survived.
NY Times
His statement reminds me of one by a now-disgraced politician who could give a hell of a speech and was right in his verbal critique:
"My view is, you give them a seat at the table, they eat all the food! You cannot compromise with these people. When you negotiate with them, they win. You have to beat them. You have to take them on."
John Edwards: "You Have to Take them On"
A good line, even if Mr. Edwards later disgraced himself.
You have to take them on.
Now there are folks who see the President as insufficently left, and he really is just a bit left of center in my view, but I'm happy he will be confrontational with corporations at times. We have not seen that since the 60s.
Let them scream about shakedowns.
In the past, corporate America was not only at the table, they owned the table and the chairs around it
It's a start that there is at least a last line of defense at times.
I like the fighting Obama. $20 B in escrow is good. Republicans howling is good.
It's a long struggle and we are just beginning to end corporate domination. It won't be easy, and there will be setbacks, and this President may not please us at all times, but the direction is right.