I saw this story at HuffPost and I think Dan Rather has likely captured what many of those critics on the left have felt and written at Daily Kos. He's wrong IMO but he's captured the feeling.
At the Georgetown conference, at the very least, he was far from the only one who thought the administration's shortcomings were to blame for 2010. Harold Ickes, a longtime Democratic operative, argued that the White House has "not done a good job explaining what the good things are in the health care bill," which, in turn lent the legislation to being demonized. But the coup-de-grace came from former CBS anchorman Dan Rather, who accused Obama of coming off as "soft."
I think this is bullshit and the best way to show this is start w/the stimulus fight that happened in Jan/Feb 2009.
Transcript
Joining us now is Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska. Sen. Nelson has joined with a small group of Republican and Democratic senators to devise the compromised Stimulus Bill that will be voted on tomorrow. Sen. Nelson, thank you so much for coming on the show tonight.
SEN. BEN NELSON (D-NE): Thank you, Rachel.
MADDOW: Wouldn‘t the country have a better shot at economic recovery if the Stimulus Bill had a higher ratio of spending to tax cuts than what‘s in the bill right now?
NELSON: Oh, I don‘t think so. I think we‘ve got a good combination of spending and tax cuts because the spending is aimed at jobs. Earlier, the discussion was this doesn‘t represent a big idea. It does. Jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs for Americans to keep Americans working and to help people who unemployed get jobs. That‘s what is really got to be about.
MADDOW: Why did you push to cut more than $15 billion of school construction money out of the bill?
NELSON: Well, the Republicans who are looking to join with us have an aversion to federal money going for that kind of a program. It is a state responsibility, local responsibility. Local governing boards - boards of education.
I, too, am concerned about money coming from Washington. As governor, I faced the under-funded mandate of special education where the Federal Government promised to be a partner with it. I faced back here a decision about "No Child Left Behind," another under-funded federal mandate.
There is a very sincere concern about the Federal Government getting involved in local education. My colleagues on the other side were very leery about that, and so they insisted that that not be included at the level that it had been.
MADDOW: Certainly, the concern, though, about federal involvement in local education is about the content of education, not literally the physical plant that could be built and thereby create jobs building the school.
NELSON: Well, my concern is once they get involved, they may not be about education, but they tell you what you‘ve got to do with "No Child Left Behind" or with special education. And then, you don‘t get the money that goes along with it and you have to take money from your own budget in order to fulfill the obligations that are passed on to local schools. But that‘s really part of the issue.
The other part of the issue is there are $66 billion of federal money going back to local schools and to governors for education. That‘s 1 ½ times the budget of the U.S. Department of Education. So while the new money that is going to education may not be at the level that it was originally talked about in the house version, it is a sizable amount of money.
$100 billion, if you count the stimulus package of $66 billion, and you have the omnibus budget bill that is going to go through shortly. $100 billion is a lot of money in any state when you look at it.
MADDOW: Sir, and certainly, when you compare the prospect of doing nothing to what we are doing, it looks like we are doing a lot. But the reason I was really looking forward to talking to you tonight is because you had said that you would probably vote against the stimulus if changes weren‘t made. And then, the changes you argued for are changes I think make the stimulus plan less stimulative.
I mean, there‘s the school construction - I‘ll just raise one other. $40 billion in aid to states - you took out of this. I mean, the president addressed that tonight when he talked about firefighters and police officers and other state-funded jobs that will go away if there isn‘t enough state-funding to hold on to them. That is almost pure stimulus, isn‘t it?
NELSON: There are $200 billion within this stimulus package that will go to states. That is a lot of money. It is not as much as originally, if you will, in the original package. But nobody‘s cutting anybody here. We‘re just making sure what goes back to the states is stimulative but also is within our ability to pay for it.
The total package here that we put together is $780 billion, right at the target that the president put at $800 billion. We‘ve got a mix of the tax cuts as well as spending and when you look at the fact that for education, the $13 billion proposed for special education was untouched.
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Pell grants - $13 billion. There is an awful lot of money going to education. It is a myth that they are not getting as much as they want. But it is a myth to say that we are not adequately handling education.
MADDOW: I don‘t think it is an issue of whether or not it is being adequately handled. It‘s because of your intervention there is less money going states. There is less money going to school construction. There‘s less money going to food stamps funding which is probably the single, most effective economic stimulus policy we know of. Before your compromise, those numbers were bigger. And now, they‘re smaller and we are trying to stimulate the economy here.
NELSON: I think I can tell you without any question, without the intervention, without the three Republican votes, they would get zero, because this bill was going nowhere with 58 votes with the Democrats. That is not sufficient to pass anything. I think you can do the math. So it was a matter of bringing bipartisan support to get something done rather than losing everything.
MADDOW: But you agree, though, that it made the bill less stimulative?
NELSON: No, I don‘t agree with that. 78 percent of the money that is there for infrastructure and that kind of spending will be spent within the first year and a half. There is stimulus. There is broadband. There‘s the electricity grid and there‘s all the construction for bridges, roads, highways and for sewer projects.
There‘s a lot of stimulus in the package that was untouched. So I think it is stimulative. And yes, we want to make sure teachers continue to work, that you don‘t lose teachers if we can keep them working. We don‘t want class size to become a bigger problem and a bigger issue for us. But when you look at $100 billion going to education, it is pretty hard to say that that is not a good jolt for the economy.
MADDOW: Sen. Nelson, I‘m in trouble already on time. I just have to ask you one last question. If Republicans choose to filibuster this, and if you don‘t have 60 votes, do you think that Republicans should have to stand on the floor of the Senate and talk this through and not have a technical filibuster, but up stand there and read the phonebook and make it clear to the American public why they are standing against this?
NELSON: Well, you know, I don‘t think they are going to do because I think we do have 61 votes. We had 61 votes today. I think we‘ll have 61 votes tomorrow. If we hadn‘t put this package together, we wouldn‘t be voting on this tomorrow, I can assure you. And the president wants it timely, targeted and temporary. And that is exactly what we are attempts to do here.
MADDOW: Sen. Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska. I feel like I understand the political argument. I don‘t agree with you all on the policy, but I get you did it for political reasons. And I really appreciate you coming on this show to talk about it tonight, particularly knowing that I disagree.
NELSON: Thank you.
MADDOW: Thank you, Sir.
NELSON: Thank you.
I added the video and the transcript of this interview because I think this encapsulates the stimulus fight perfectly: in the Fall of 2008 we had seen the Republican controlled House vote down TARP and nearly bring the country and the world to a halt. The bailout passed after this scare; but we came to the edge there for a moment. These are the people the President was dealing with; and everyone expected him to act like a King and declare something to be done. But Congress legislates and he fought to get this bill, a no brainer, through Congress because conservative Democrats were freaked out that not one single Republican looked willing to cross the aisle and vote for NECESSARY legislation.
I don't think we can ever repeat this fact enough: House Republicans rejected the stimulus and voted against it and only three Republican senators supported the stimulus bill. THREE FUCKING REPUBLICAN SENATORS! One of these senators became a Democrat and the other two are from Maine; and they're likely worried about facing tea party challenges today.
POTUS held town halls, press conferences, speeches, advocated for the stimulus and the Republicans held together and the MSM wondered were was the brilliant campaigner from 2008. Why was he boring them?
Here is the reaction to that press conference.
President Obama hijacked the TV airwaves last night for his first prime-time press conference, as part of his recent campaign to muster up support for his economic stimulus package. After completing his opening statement on the severity of the economic crisis and the need for action, Obama spent the remainder of the hour taking questions from the press corps on issues ranging from the stimulus bill (obviously) to Iran, Joe Biden, and even A-Rod (Obama is against taking steroids, in case you were wondering). Little news was made, but Obama did take a question from the Huffington Post's Sam Stein, the first time a blog has been called on in such a forum. Hooray for the changing media landscape and future trivia questions. Anyway, although Obama probably didn't win over many fans of House or Chuck, his controlled performance impressed most observers, when it wasn't boring them.
• Howard Kurtz says Obama "controlled the tone of the East Room proceedings, speaking with utmost seriousness, gesturing with his hands and displaying a command of the facts." [WP]
• Jeff Zeleney writes that the White House's "strategy was to avoid making news. On that score, Mr. Obama seemed to succeed." [Caucus/NYT]
• Josh Marshall gets the sense that "every day Republicans keep this guy off TV is a win for them. Like every great pol, Obama's a great communicator. And he's making the argument." [Talking Points Memo]
• Michelle Malkin mocks "the hard-hitting question about Obama’s reaction to Alex Rodriguez and his steroid use. What a bunch of oxygen-wasters." [Michelle Malkin]
• George Stephanopoulos gives Obama an "A" for the sale, because Obama was "able to really get his message across." As for reaching out to Republicans, he gets a "B." You could see "a real, inherent tension between the president's promise of bipartisanship, of reaching out the other side, and his promise of fundamental policy change." [George's Bottom Line/ABC News]
• Mike Madden says "a calm, confident President Obama ... easily drove home a twofold message to anyone watching — he didn't cause the mess we're in, but he intends to solve it." [Salon]
• David Corn thinks Obama "stuck to his message with discipline and eloquence," but wonders why he didn't call on "his millions of supporters to pressure Congress to pass the stimulus bill." [Mojo/Mother Jones]
• Walter Shapiro asserts that "Obama radiated the sense of a leader who has digested too many economic briefings and memorized too many talking points in preparation for his primetime rendezvous with the public." For his next press conference, "he might consider taking his stage cues from that White House master of brevity known as Silent Cal Coolidge." [New Republic]
• Mark Silva says that with his long answers, "the president has controlled the evening — important for a leader who already enjoys stong [sic] public support in his confrontation with Republicans in Congress." [Swamp/Chicago Tribune]
• Steve Chaggaris notes that whenever Obama wasn't asked about the stimulus, "he either turned his answers away from the original question back to his points about the merits of the stimulus or parried by either not answering the question or relying on statements he has made in the past." [Political Hotsheet/CBS News]
• Alex Koppelman writes that Obama "projected an air of competence and calm, made no serious mistakes, seemed to truly know his material." But consequently, "good God, it was boring." [War Room/Salon]
• Matt Yglesias was struck by the fact "that a lot of America’s high-powered political journalists seem, at least as evidenced by the questions they ask, to have a very poor grasp of macroeconomic issues." Which would be fine, except they're writing about them. [Think Progress]
• John Dickerson calls the performance "systematic, commanding, at times belabored, and a test of a new kind of political communication." But it's unclear if his patience "created the sense of urgency he was aiming for and whether he characterized his opponents as powerfully and acutely as necessary to reframe the debate on his terms." [Slate]
• Mark Hemingway contends the whole thing "was, frankly, boring and long-winded. His answer to the first question was an unforgivably meandering and pointless 10 minutes." [Corner/National Review]
• Chris Cillizza notes that "as the debate on Capitol Hill has gotten more partisan, the president has appeared more and more willing to put the blame on the GOP," and last night he "repeatedly referenced the fact that he has 'inherited' the economic morass in which the country currently finds itself." [Fix/WP]
• John Podhoretz felt "Obama was, overall, rather dazzling tonight, and did, I think, exactly what he wanted to do, which is use the bully pulpit and his popularity to change the momentum on the stimulus, which has been running in the other direction." [Contentions/Commentary]
• Steve Benen was relieved to finally "have a chief executive who knows what he's talking about." [Political Animal/Washington Monthly]
• Michael Goldfarb claims Obama "set up one strawman after another. It's a rhetorical device that Obama used to good effect during the campaign, but as president it's bad form." [Blog/Weekly Standard]
• Carol Platt Liebau insists that Obama's "press conference had to be an enormous disappointment to anyone who had really believed his hype about bringing 'hope' and 'change' to Washington." His tone was "peevish and almost panicky" and "his characterization of the bill's opponents was as dishonest as it was insulting." [Town Hall]
• Matthew Cooper believes Obama "handled himself with great aplomb," and "the contrast with George W. Bush couldn't have been more striking." [Talking Points Memo DC]
It's all political horse-race bullshit. No substance. No focus on republican obstructionism. No analysis of the President's points. He looked good, wonky, boring. Good bill to have passed; but the 2008 guy we miss.
While disappointed Progressives wondered why the President decided to do a deal in the face of opposition from the entire Republican party and conservative democrats (who were determined not to be seen as with the liberals); Republicans went to work demonizing the stimulus.
"A failure to act, and act now, will turn crisis into a catastrophe."
-- President Obama, Feb. 4.
WASHINGTON -- Catastrophe, mind you. So much for the president who in his inaugural address two weeks earlier declared "we have chosen hope over fear." Until, that is, you need fear to pass a bill.
And so much for the promise to banish the money changers and influence peddlers from the temple. An ostentatious executive order banning lobbyists was immediately followed by the nomination of at least a dozen current or former lobbyists to high position. Followed by a Treasury secretary who allegedly couldn't understand the payroll tax provisions in his 1040. Followed by Tom Daschle, who had to fall on his sword according to the new Washington rule that no Cabinet can have more than one tax delinquent.
Like that: distract with Daschle, trash the stimulus, ignore the economic realities of why the President is spending this money and how Republicans brought us here; good job Mr. Krauthammer.
President Obama has made a show of reaching across the aisle since taking office, inviting three Republicans into his cabinet and wining and dining other opposition leaders. But by Monday, he sounded like a candidate back on the trail, railing against the status quo and dismissing critics as apostles of a failed philosophy.
Three weeks into his tenure, Mr. Obama acknowledged that his effort to change the political climate in Washington had yielded little. He made clear that he had all but given up hope of securing a bipartisan consensus behind his $800 billion economic recovery package, arguing that the urgency of the economic crisis had at least for now outweighed the need for unity.
"I’m happy to get good ideas from across the political spectrum, from Democrats and Republicans," he said at the Monday night news conference. "What I won’t do is return to the failed theories of the last eight years that got us into this fix in the first place, because those theories have been tested and they have failed. And that’s part of what the election in November was all about."
The sharp tone at the news conference and at a whooping election-style rally in Indiana earlier in the day signaled a shift by the White House in the fractious debate over his package of spending and tax breaks.
With no Republicans in the House voting for the economic plan and just three in the Senate, Mr. Obama on Monday began a week of barnstorming stops that will also take him to Florida and Illinois to create momentum behind his program.
That was the lede from the NYT Peter Baker on the President's news conference. Awesome, hmm. From jump the idea that working with Republicans is all show, criticize him for campaigning for the program, no talk about what this stimulus program means or the universal Republican obstructionism. ( I also want to point out that POTUS has continually attacked Republicans; this is a major complaint about him. He attacks; but it seems to me the members of Congress and Democrats on tv, and the blogsphere don't amplify those attacks. I don't know if it's the WH fault for not coordinating or what; but that most progressive blogs are focused on attacking Democrats since they're in the majority it can't have helped.)
And that is the result of Progressives focusing on policy and not on politics; which is what happened the last two years IMO. People focused on "holding POTUS accountable" and when the last votes were taken; there weren't a lot of people out there banging the drum that only 3 republicans voted for the stimulus plan.
Instead, it was about how Obama was letting President Nelson, President Collins, or President Snowe set the agenda.
I want to take a moment and focus on that. What does it mean that progressives would willingly weaken and disparage their own President in such terms? Seriously. That was the moment IMO that the MSM knew it had an opening to create a narrative of Obama's climb down. The President is too weak to take on conservative elements of his party and bend them to his will; that became the accepted reality and the FACT that Republicans were obstructing critical and vital legislation for this country was obscured not simply by the majorities that Democrats had but by the blind insistence that Obama could somehow will duly elected legislators to vote as he demanded. That blind insistence occurred in no small part because THAT was the line that many progressives took.
No one talked about Republicans; it was all about the blue dogs. But the fact is, and I will accept I can only articulate this clearly in hindsight, the Blue Dogs were freaked out by the Republicans voting in lockstep against the Democrats agenda. These are people in conservative districts who hit hippies and vote with the Republicans a certain percentage of the time to "hide" their liberal side. They're the Republican light for a conservative district. Republicans gave them no place to hide and used them to weaken progressive/liberal legislation.
That video of Sen. Nelson makes it clear; it's all about being able to say I stopped this or that and made this more conservative. It's why most of the blue dogs are gone.
But in harping on the conservative democrats, we missed the fact that they were the only legislators POTUS could get. The Republicans weren't playing ball. That is why everything the last two years took so long, felt so watered down, and ended on a sour note. Because democrats were fighting each other and Republicans did NOTHING. And then they got swept into power.
The fact is POTUS WAS bipartisan and he was negotiating with Republicans through the blue dogs; and after a certain point he made the blue dogs walk the plank. This had to happen on every damn thing and was not only exhausting but sapped the energy not simply from the party but the White House as well and left it unable to react nimbly politically in the face of the tea party.
I have ten other examples but I'm just too pissed to link to them right now. I just want to say that when Dan Rather says Obama has a reputation for playing a little soft; it's one progressives gave him. It is a meme birthed not only here at Daily Kos, but Americablog, firedoglake etc etc. It's one angry progressives who feel they weren't heard and the only ones being listened to were blue dogs said; POTUS is weak and isn't playing hardball.
It is bullshit.
President Obama has not been dealing with Republicans because all the Republicans took themselves out of the game; he's been fighting his own party the last two years. He's been fighting conservative democrats afraid of voting with their president with no republican cover and then facing voters accused of being in lockstep with a liberal president; it happened anyway. He has been dealing with a media that looks to the President at all times and ignores the legislative process and policy issues; this is all about ratings, narrative, and MONEY being made when a story is about Obama. All of this bullshit has been reinforced by the blogosphere.
So Cenk, when you ask how that bipartisanship is working for you. Fuck you, that's all I've got to say. The President has to lie and say shit like that and everyone else can recognize a political strategy, one that actually has a chance to work now that Republicans DO have power.
Why don't you ask yourself what you prefer, a blue dog or a republican?
And I really want to know when a site that was about more democrats, better democrats, and supporting the party became a progressive purity testing ground? Because shit like what Dan Rather said shouldn't stand; and we should be making it clear Republicans can't hide anymore.
The White House can only do so much in the face of a media that has a narrative and is determined to stick to it and has Citzen's United money to back it up. It took POTUS Iowa to be considered a serious candidate; what's it going to take for Democrats to recognize they have to take sides and fire at the right. Because every critical thing, it's going to be twisted to create a statement like the one Dan Rather made. One that is clearly false; but still somehow becomes accepted wisdom. Example: a fiscal conservative.