I want to address a couple of the AP "fact-checking" lies mentioned in McJoan's diary here. First this:
[W]hen former President Bill Clinton took the stage at the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday, he portrayed President Barack Obama as a pragmatic compromiser who has been stymied at every turn by Republicans. There was no mention of the role that the president and the Democrats have played in grinding compromise to a halt on some of the most important issues facing the country.
As McJoan mentioned, the main piece of evidence given to support the assertion that Clinton misled us is that President Obama chose Rahm Emmanuel as his chief-of-staff. Interestingly, no examples were given to show how this prevented compromise. What the "fact-checkers" seem interested to ignore is the mountain of evidence that proves President Clinton right: Republicans absolutely refused to compromise.
The first piece of evidence is the meeting held on the very evening after President Obama's inauguration, attended by Paul Ryan among others, mentioned here and here, among other places. Here is what Newt Gingrich said about his thoughts on the way to that meeting (video here):
GINGRICH: [Obama's] inaugural speech on -- and which was -- which I said to Callista when we left the speech -- because we were at the Capitol for the inaugural. As we left, I said, you know, if he sticks to the kind of moderation and bipartisanship he`s been describing, he will split the Republican Party. He`ll govern like Eisenhower and he`ll get reelected.
As
one diarist summed up the meeting:
Paul Ryan and the other Republicans vowed to block all of President Obama's policies that would help Americans and vowed "NO" to any and all sense of bipartisanship.
That is qualitatively different than picking a hard-nosed chief of staff, no matter what side of the aisle one finds himself on. Failure to recognize that qualitative difference makes the AP "fact-checkers" bald-faced liars who should be forced to find other work.
Here is the other instance from McJoan's diary:
One of the more high-profile examples of a deal that fell apart was the outline of a proposed "grand bargain" budget agreement between Obama and House Speaker John Boehner in 2011. [...]
Boehner couldn't sell the plan to tea party factions in the House or to other conservative activists. And Obama found himself accused of going too far by some Democratic leaders. The deal died before it ever even came up for a vote.
Like McJoan, I fail to see how that could be President Obama's fault in any reasonable fact universe. But yet again, the AP "fact-checkers" failed to contextualize their comment with actual, well,
facts. Most importantly, there were other high profile politicians who
actually prevented Boehner from compromising: Paul Ryan and Eric Cantor. As
Ryan Lizza recently noted (and this also includes the Simpson Bowles Commission referenced by AP "fact-checkers"):
[H]is increasing power, and his credibility as the leading authority on conservative fiscal policy, soon made his imprimatur essential for any Republican trying to reach a compromise with Democrats. Ryan helped scuttle three deals on the budget. He had served on the Simpson-Bowles deficit commission but refused to endorse its final proposal, in December, 2010. When deficit negotiations moved from the failed commission to Congress, Ryan stuck with the extreme faction of the G.O.P. caucus, which withheld support from any of the leading bipartisan plans. In the summer of 2011, when a group of Democratic and Republican senators, known as the Gang of Six, produced their own agreement, Ryan’s detailed criticism helped sink it. And, also that summer, during high-level talks between the White House and Republican leaders, Cantor and Ryan reportedly pressured Boehner to reject a potential deal with President Obama.
Given these actual
facts, interestingly absent from the AP "fact-checking," it is obvious that President Obama is not the problem here. Republicans, especially Paul Ryan, are.