Was doing this an Obama & Co.’s political death wish? It’s sort of like selling terrorists bomb making materials, blind to the fact they’ll use them against you.
With a little over two weeks to go to the critical elections, why would the Obama White House want reporters (and voters) to fixate on what it got wrong in its first two years? That’s the question prompted by the appearance this week of a made-for-cable-chatter New York Times Magazine story.
[...]
Obama and his crew stand by their policy achievements—the stimulus, the health care overhaul, Wall Street reform—but they concede that they have screwed up the political calculus. “Given how much stuff was coming at us,” Obama told Baker, “we probably spent much more time trying to get the policy right than trying to get the politics right.” Obama explained: “I think anybody who’s occupied this office has to remember that success is determined by an intersection in policy and politics and that you can’t be neglecting of marketing and PR and public opinion.” The president also noted that he allowed his political foes to identify him as “the same old tax-and-spend liberal Democrat.” Baker describes Obama’s “self-diagnosis” this way: “[T]he figure of inspiration from 2008 neglected the inspiration after his election. He didn’t stay connected to the people who put him in office in the first place.”
[...]
There are not many days left before voters hit the polls for the critical midterm elections. Now is not the moment for a high-profile “We blew the politics” admission. The White House ought to be in full attack mode.
[...]
The fallout from the Times story will compete with the message the Democrats truly need to hammer home in the next 19 days: A Republican takeover of the House and/or Senate will mark a triumph for the wealthy and such special interests as Big Oil and Big Finance. At this point, Democratic congressional candidates will not be aided by Obama acknowledging the obvious: “We neglected politics.”
This is not admitting failure, it is the same thing they all say. We did everything right but people just don’t get it. It is usually said as ‘we failed to adequately get the message out’. It really means we made no mistakes the public is just too stupid to see it (or they believed the ‘lies’).
Yea, Heath Care Reform.
The clown and his team of mental midgets missed that target by a couple of miles.
Health care is the preservation of mental and physical health by preventing or treating illness.
It is not insurance or 1099s.
LIE TO ME NO MORE.
#2
They all lie. That is how they get their job and keep it.
They won’t tell us the truth because we would either go nuts and kill ourselves or them.
No one in government wants a return to the guillotine or the firing squad.
And no one in their right mind wants martial law because it means sooner or later the people will form into insurgents or the military will be doing ALL the work so why have a government of non-militarists?
Cursor_
Republicans get a 28 seat majority in the House.
Democrats get a 4 seat majority in the Senate.
A Republican takeover of the House and/or Senate will mark a triumph for the wealthy and such special interests as Big Oil and Big Finance.-Comrade Dave
BP, Wall Street, GE, Microsoft, all big Obama supporters.
That’s documented.
The alleged foreign money pouring into Republican campaigns…is rather coming from freedom loving tea party folks like me…
Who in the past didn’t concern ourselves with politics…but who saw the 2006 Democratic Win resulted in the collapse of our economy due to their mismanagement of Fannie Freddie, their silly redistribution schemes that simultaneously make the Progressive Elites rich…
Now these same incompetent crooks are obstructing justice, there will be no jailing the crooks until they are out of power.
So small businessmen like myself, and other concerned citizens, many for the first time, are giving to political campaigns money we usually send to charities…
If we let you progressives destroy our country without trying everything we can to stop you, then we have only ourselves to blame.
You can be stopped.
“Obama and his crew stand by their policy achievements—the stimulus, the health care overhaul, Wall Street reform”
In other words, nothing has changed. Yes, they “did stuff” but the stuff that they did, sucked.
The Teleprompter Spirit is to blame, all them unclean spirits infesting this administration and Congress.
Lets join Michele Obama and pray the unclean spirits leave them…
then perhaps the post racial, post partisan pragmatic centrist Personality we voted for, can re-emerge, in a Sybil redux.
Are they still trying to reattach the seal to his podium?
I love how Obama & Co. keep saying that they didn’t get the message out.
I got news for them. They did get their message out. All too well. People don’t like it.
“Obama and his crew stand by their policy achievements—the stimulus, the health care overhaul, Wall Street reform” They can call them “achievements” all they want. I call them reminders of why I’ll never vote Democrat again.
Damn, how can the holder of most powerful position in the world be so clueless? What planet has he been living on his whole life?
This jackass gave the finger to 60% of the citizens of this country to jam through his agenda and now he thinks his problems stem from a communication failure? The perpetual campaigner thinks he didn’t give enough speeches???
Harvard should be asking Obama to return his diploma.
Urgh, Daily Show is going to have a field day with this. Maybe they can just pull a re-run and repeat the message to Obama.
At this point I think anyone can “beat up” the Democrats; bunch of wimps.
(From the article)
I don’t think anyone here expected the degree of partisanship that we confronted
You wouldn’t have encountered that partisanship had your requests been more reasonable. More importantly, that partisanship wouldn’t have mattered if you would have been able to simply convince your own party to follow you.
They [Republicans] were souring the country on the mood of the country.
Bullshit. 10% unemployment, the government spending money faster than a football team at a whore house and deciding that devaluing the currency is a way to deal with the deficit is what is souring the country.
I said during the 2008 election that it generally takes Senators a year or so to “get” being President and how being President is different than being a Senator. I would say that given Obama’s lack of experience in management, it is taking him quite a bit longer.
#5
I wouldn’t confuse the deep anger after Bush II with the TEA party people. The right has been using targeted media to build a continuously angry segment of the population for years. Now it’s, marginally, interesting that the rabble seems to have outrun the demogogues. It will be important for the GOP to paint any gains this cycle as a repudiation of Obama’s policies. The reality is that Obama’s took power after a historical public revolt against the GOP in the ’06 and ’08 elections. His failure is that he didn’t capitalize on his strong position and push for bigger changes when he had the chance. The narrative of the strong change agent is useful to sell the programs of both parties, but the public is clearly not buying it.
As you point out successfully Obama is bought and paid for by the same guys that brought us the GOP. Both sides favor the big businesses, because they bring political green. How the agenda is radically different when it follows the same backers is something you’re going to have to explain to me…
I also agree with your characterization of the financial meltdown as a redistribution scheme. This wasn’t to support a grand socialist paradise. It was taken to pay for nice apartments, strippers, and fast cars. The central culprit is the idea that markets police themselves. Financial cops are good. Also the government needs to look at limiting the size of some markets.
Revulsion for synthetic, sliced and diced, debt was the mechanism of the last crash. Today nobody is going to admit to knowing how this really generated profits in an actual operation(an admission of guilt). The scale of these markets was preposterous. Why didn’t the government react? Deregulation.
The “Progressives” are the cool target on the GOP enemies list. I gotta tell you, this doesn’t have a damn thing to do with Progressives.
According to CNN the (D)ipshit mantra for this election year is once again “Change”. Because the change they changed us to wasn’t enough. So they want to change the change they already changed us to.
My proposal for change would be to build some gallows and march every (R)etard and (D)ipshit in the country straight to them.
Tea Party revealed.
Listen to the Tea Party Candidates for yourself!
What’s stupid about this? He wants to explain why he is losing seats, and he’s doing it beforehand.
This is like those job interview answers of my biggest weakness is that I work too hard.
#14 Your simple, eloquent, truthful explanation made me laugh. It’s not often I read something about a serious subject that makes me laugh. And after the march let’s form our own party.
Obama explained his game plan to Diane Sawyer in Jan. 2010: “I’d rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president.”
He’s already proven himself successful as a writer of books and giver of speeches, so why not exit the low-paying hard job early? To get a taste of how nice being away can be, he’s leaving on Nov. 4th for an 11 day trip to Asia.
Why does he admit he’s made mistakes yet continues to follow the path to his own agenda? That is not admitting he is wrong as much as he thinks America is too stupid to see this as a tactical move.
Wow.
“Not that many people read the New York Times Magazine,” Gibbs said in an off-handed way.
You expect that from Republicans, but now even liberals are bashing the house organ of the Democratic Party.