The White House is straight up taking on Republicans for their economic sabotage in the lead-up to tonight's jobs bill vote. Consider these very direct tweets from press secretary Jay Carney, directed at Mitch McConnell:
(Riiiiiiight. A charade. Unlike all their "defund Planned Parenthood" bills.)
But even more encouraging is the email sent by the Obama/Biden 2012 campaign today, as reported by Steve Benen.
The message reads, in part:
"The U.S. Senate is supposed to vote on the American Jobs Act as early as tonight.
"It's a bill that will put people to work immediately, and it contains proposals that members of both parties have said in the past that they'd support.
"But Senate Republicans want to block it. Not because they have a plan that creates jobs right now—not one Republican, in Congress or in the presidential race, does. They only have a political plan.
"Their strategy is to suffocate the economy for the sake of what they think will be a political victory. They think that the more folks see Washington taking no action to create jobs, the better their chances in the next election. So they’re doing everything in their power to make sure nothing gets done." [emphasis added]
The message goes on from there to talk about the merits of the White House jobs bill, urging recipients to call Capitol Hill. Regardless, this is, as near as I can tell, the first time anyone associated with the president has broached the sabotage question at all.
Benen then goes through the litany of people, a few Democratic politicians and plenty of pundits, who have been saying just that for months: Sabotaging the economy is a deliberate political strategy on the part of the Republicans. Many of us have been saying this since McConnell's admission that the "single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president."
This is the White House many of us having been waiting for: the one that recognizes and calls out the Republican opposition for what it is, a gang of nihilists who will destroy anything standing in their path, if they think they can win. That's the reality that President Obama and his team absolutely have to internalize and act upon moving forward toward 2012. It's not going to help on policy-making, but since the Republicans were never going to meet Democrats halfway on anything in policy, that's no loss.