Here is what I would like to be reading on the front page of my paper this morning:
Republican Commerce Secretary Nominee, Judd Gregg, Caves In to Right-Wing Pressure, Abandons Post at Critical Moment for American Economy.
AP Washington -
Republican pundits such as Rush Limbaugh have said that they would rather see the country's economy fail than see President Obama's efforts to rescue it succeed. It seems they are getting their wish...
Of course what I am hearing about instead from the talking heads on CBS is "Doesn't this latest withdrawal from the new cabinet point to some serious problems in Obama's vetting process?"
Well, the obvious answer to that is, YES - he shouldn't have trusted a Republican to cooperate with him - but that's a topic we've already given ample time to on this site. The issue I want to talk about right now is spin - or the noticable LACK thereof coming from the White House....
As President, Obama has enormous power through his unparalleled position to spoon-feed the mainstream media their daily talking points and to spin the interpretation of each day's news events. So far, his administration is triggering an EPIC FAIL in this regard. Contrary to popular perception, this is the ONLY area they are truly failing in. When it comes to policy creation and staff vetting they are doing as well as ANYONE could under the circumstances - that is - working within a highly complex, competitive system under a fierce deadline. The PROBLEM is that in their "good student" industriousness to solve the tangible (ie., real) problems facing America and in their "feel-good" utopian embrace of the net-roots, they have failed to take any initiative with the most important social force of all - the mainstream media. The real battleground in our fight to save the country is NOT being waged on the Senate floor. It's taking place on the airwaves and in the daily paper.
Politicians have NEVER been the ones who "decide" what happens in the world. They are merely the catalysts. Therefore, it is useless to lobby them on a personal level (thinking that one can appeal to their individual good sense, compassion, or professed party values), because the ONLY thing politicians care about is being liked by enough people to keep their jobs. Intense public pressure is the only thing that HAS ever or EVER WILL work. That is why the right is working Obama's Republican allies and the media so hard right now. Perception, coercion and threats to a lawmaker's political safety are what move his hand most decisively. Nothing else.
Obama's administration just doesn't seem to have its head in the game on this right now. They are letting so-called "conservatives" mop the floor with them. If Obama's team fails to wrestle the ball back out of the hands of the status quo - that is to say, away from those very elite few who gain when most of America loses (the ones who are very happy to have condition-free billions handed over to them directly, but cannot stomach the average person receiving a dime of assistance), then Obama - and the majority of the people in this country - will, in fact, lose.
My plea from the bleachers:
I know you speak basketball, Mr. President, so let me say this as clearly as I can:
You CANNOT SCORE if you DON'T HAVE THE BALL.
THE MEDIA IS THE BALL.
Defense alone will not win the game... especially a weak defense. Neither is it okay to simply score a few points now and then.
You must CONSISTENTLY score MORE POINTS than the other team.
So GET the ball, KEEP the ball, CONTROL the ball-
even when the other team seems to have possession of it -
remember that YOU get to decide what they will do with it.
And what would you have them do? Well, hand it right back to you, of course, so you can score again.
THAT is how you win a game.
Unfortunately, the only ones playing this way right now are the far right-wing Republicans.... Not only are we letting them control the paint on both sides of the court, but we're missing our free-throws, as well.
PLEASE DON'T let them SWEEP this thing.
So why isn't Coach Obama running a better offense? We know he is capable of strategic excellence that far surpasses what we are seeing now. so what's up? Well, my guess (and it is just a guess) is that the chaos of transition and the sudden obvious workload of being "leader of the free world" is forcing him to "trust the team". Now that would be great if maybe he had chosen someone like Axelrod to be his Press Secretary. But instead he chose... this guy -->
[WEENIE PHOTO OF ROBERT GIBBS HERE]
(BTW, if someone can tell me how to acquire and post such a visual, I would be eternally grateful.)
Based on what we've seen so far from this pathetic new point guard, the current approach, whatever it is, seems to be a poor one. Presidential press conferences are the best tool we have right now for spinning the Republican's bullsh#t into pure gold. So why is the administration wasting these trillion dollar opportunities before a captive audience by mumbling these numb, vapid, non-statements like a sleepwalker on Ambien? Obama shouldn't have to host his own press events to get any effective coverage of his policy ideas. His PRESS SECRETARY needs to start DOING HIS JOB.
Beyond that, some staffers (a whole LOT of staffers, in fact) need to be focused on NOTHING BUT actively seeding the national conversation with talking points that expose our opposition's tactics for what they truly are: deliberate political sabotage done with no regard for the American people. The White House needs a battalion of talented surrogates working the media circuit at LEAST as hard as they did during the critical moments of last year's campaign. Playing the media game in order to get elected is not just some sadistic hazing process. It's a dress rehearsal. It only gets MORE intense from here on in.
I think the reason Obama has failed to take a more aggressive approach to the word wars is because he's afraid it will sound too partisan. He has failed to make the adjustment from being an underdog candidate to the guy in the oval office holding all the cards. We need to remind him that if a bozo like Bush could make the media jump when he said jump, Obama can, too. We also need to remind Obama that the ideological divisions that exist in the imaginary world of Washington, D.C. are not the same ones that exist in real America. (The President, in turn, needs to remind Congress of that.) Giving money to people who haven't earned it (ie., a financial bailout sans CEO pay caps) is NOT an everyday conservative value. Taking your toys and going home when you can't get your way (Republican Gregg abandoning his Commerce Post) is not what real men do when the people they (should) care about are losing everything. Obama and all his operatives (and if he doesn't have "operatives" he needs to get some) need to start calling out the Republican leadership for being out of synch with the traditional values of their own constituents. This needs to be done publicly and on a daily basis through every avenue possible.
In the meantime, with no one to tell them otherwise, the media will keep complaining about Obama's vetting process when they should be shaming Gregg and the Republicans for abandoning America in it's moment of need because working outside of an echo chamber is too "uncomfortable" for them. Democrats MUST start getting ahead of the spin on these things. The administration needs to be proactive. Judd Gregg's withdrawal is not a failure of Obama's vetting process (like the MSM is currently and relentlessly suggesting) - it is a failure of the Republican Party's priorities.
Far right conservatives are basically still throwing a tantrum over having lost the last election when they should be helping us steer our national economy away from the cliff. Do they really think creating a lack of confidence in the President is going to stimulate economic recovery? Of course not, but they DON'T CARE about the carnage they create in our lives, as long as they come out winners in the end and keep their summer homes and private schools throughout the process.
We need to start spinning the truth.
Will someone please tell the President that he not only has the RIGHT, but the DUTY to blatantly, proactively, and consistently shape the message surrounding his progressive policies? That's because they really aren't his policies at all, they are OURS. There was never a need to be humble about it.