Of late, I have been watching MSNBC with one finger poised on the channel switcher of my remote control. For, although I have always had a love hate relationship with the network, based upon the schizophrenic nature of its programming, especially as it relates to its joining in the seemingly irresistible cable news indulgence of negative Obama reportage. Since the development of the oil spill disaster, however, I have become an even more reluctant viewer.
Last evening on the Rachel Maddow Show, the host did something that I have yet to see on any news broadcast, and, although I have seen reporting of this nature on the occasional Democratic leaning blogosphere, I can say with a great degree of certainty that it goes against the general media narrative in regards to President Obama.
Maddow began this amazing segment of her broadcast by noting President Obama’s recent tweet:
With the passage of financial regulation in Washington today, President Obama took to the very un-momentous setting of 'Twitters,' as he called it yesterday, to say this, quote, 'Last night`s House Senate agreement on Wall Street reform represents the toughest financial reform since the Great Depression.'
She then, not only buttressed the President’s characterization of the financial regulation agreement, but she took the opportunity to quote Taegan Goddard at CQ Politics.
It turns out that a lot of things that have happened in the less than two years of this administration are the biggest or first or most important in generations. On the occasion of the Wall Street reform announcement today, Taegan Goddard at 'CQ Politics' wrote, 'Not since FDR has a president done so much to transform this country.'
Ms. Maddow could have stopped right here and I would have been extremely gratified, but she continued:
Even before today`s historic Wall Street reform agreement, President Obama, of course, did what politicians have been trying to do for more than 60 years. He passed health reform, which, for the first time, establishes government responsibility for the health care of American citizens.
Consider also the stimulus bill. It didn`t just throw a lasso around our entire economy and yank and yank it back from the brink. It also pumped about $100 billion into the crumbling embarrassment of our national infrastructure and transportation system.
Did she just say President Obama yanked the US economy back from the brink? At this point I’m smiling from ear to ear, but still she continued:
It was the largest investment in infrastructure since Ike. For solving our country`s energy problems, something Obama has compared to man walking on the moon, it contained about $60 billion in spending and tax incentives for renewable and clean energy, also a historic investment.
It also included an unheralded but giant investment in science and tech, amping up the budgets at NASA, the National Science Foundation, and an experimental energy research agency that was created under President George W. Bush, but never funded until now.
President Obama’s contribution so far to science and technology is one of the most under reported items of his still nascent administration. But there is more to come:
President Obama also expanded state kids` health insurance to cover another four million kids. He signed the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act amending the 1964 civil rights act for equal pay for equal work.
He signed a nuclear arms deal with Russia that would reduce both countries` arsenals by a third. He created a new global nonproliferation initiative to keep nuclear materials out of the hands of terrorists.
Did all this happen in just 18 months? I thought this President was such a disappointment. Ms. Maddow:
He set forth an international way forward on that radical left-wing proposition of Ronald Reagan, a world without nuclear weapons. Then there are the legislative and policy achievements that don`t just build on previously-set precedents, but set new ones.
The Hate Crimes Prevention Act, also known as the Matthew Shepard Act. It had languished in Congress for years. The Food and Drug Administration permitted for the first time to regulate tobacco.
Obama fired two wartime commanding generals in little over a year. He overhauled the astonishing stupidity of the student loan system in which banks were being subsidized to give loans that were guaranteed by the government anyway, a license to print money.
That was ended in the savings put toward actual aid to students. He canceled a weapons program that was bloated, unnecessary and totally irrelevant to either of our current wars, the F-22. Why even mention the cancellation of a single weapons system? Because that never happens. Weapons systems never get canceled. The F-22 did, which is itself a miracle.
Maddow also spoke of disappointments, but the difference in her expressed disappointment was the fact that she did not allow her disappointment to vilify or characterized this President as being worthless or the same as Bush:
In each of these achievements and in the list of things he has yet to do -'Don`t Ask, Don`t Tell,' closing Guantanamo - in each of these things, there is room for liberal disappointment. I sing a bittersweet lullaby to the lost public option when I go to sleep at night.
But presidential legacies are complex. Not even the Reagan administration`s legacy is pure as the conservative-driven snow. But Taegan Goddard at CQ Politics was right today about nothing this big happening since FDR.
This was certainly an amazing broadcast and one that actually left me stunned. Maddow ended with this:
The list of legislative accomplishments of this president in half a term even before energy reform which he`s probably going to get to is, to quote the vice president, 'a big freaking deal.' Love this administration or hate it, this president is getting a lot done. The last time any president did this much in office, booze was illegal. If you believe in policy, if you believe in government that addresses problems, cheers to that. Good night.
Thank you, Ms. Maddow. Good night, indeed.
Rachel Maddow Transcript:
http://www6.lexisnexis.com/...