Biden: McConnell decided to withhold ALL cooperation even BEFORE we took office

[kpete]

Posted at 12:14 PM ET, 08/10/2012
Biden: McConnell decided to withhold all cooperation even before we took office
By Greg Sargent

I’ve got my copy of Michael Grunwald’s new book on the making of stimulus, The New New Deal, and there are a lot of juicy nuggets in it. In particular, it may shed new light on the degree to which Republicans may have decided to deny Obama all cooperation for the explicit purpose of rendering his presidency a failure — making it easier for them to mount a political comback after their disastrous 2008 losses.

Here’s the relevant passage, from page 207:

Biden says that during the transition, he was warned not to expect any cooperation on many votes. “I spoke to seven different Republican Senators, who said, `Joe, I’m not going to be able to help you on anything,’ he recalls. His informants said (Senate Minority Leader Mitch) McConnell had demanded unified resistance. “The way it was characterized to me was: `For the next two years, we can’t let you succeed in anything. That’s our ticket to coming back,’” Biden says.

The vice president says he hasn’t even told Obama who his sources were, but Bob Bennett of Utah and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania both confirmed they had conversations with Biden along these lines.

MORE:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/biden-mcconnell-decided-to-withhold-all-cooperation-even-before-we-took-office/2012/08/10/64e9a138-e302-11e1-98e7-89d659f9c106_blog.html

[elleng]

1. Thanks. Its on my FB now,

especially in case any of my Ohio repug 'relatives' are interested.
And great to see 'we' are going forward with this, which sure as hell should decide things for any remaining 'undecideds.'

[Larkspur]

2. The video of McConnell's statement that their 1 goals is to deny Obama a 2nd term...

needs to be in a major ad buy after Labor Day. Pre-meditated Republican obstructionism needs to blamed as the main reason for our anemic economic recovery and fully explained to the America people, especially Independents. Republican obstructionism, funded by the likes of the greedy Kock brothers etc, is doing harm to our nation because a Democrat and an African American is the President of the United States.

Of course the ad needs to be done in a way that shows that Obama made some progress in our economy despite this obstructionism, but our recovery would be faster and fairer if the Republicans would either cooperate or be replaced by those who seek to govern for the benefit of the American people, not for the Republican Party and greedy money interests.

[elleng]

3. ABSOLUTELY!

And I'm sure Dems and this administration can come up with some very fine, 'beautiful,' and informative ads on the subject: We've got talent!

[randr]

4. Basically these asswipes agreed to violate their

"Oath of Office" and their sworn duty to the American people.

[Cognitive_Resonance]

5. "...I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So

help me God."

[Bucky]

8. "...so help me God" - meaning the same god who wants them to gut social programs?

Not the God you'll find in the New Testament.

[Major Hogwash]

6. This was obvious from Day One!!!

Go Obama-Biden!!

[Bucky]

7. This is what George Washington warned about in 1797 - the "spirit of party"

It's not just the fact of joining political parties, which is probably architecturally inevitable in a democracy. But the problem occurs when one party becomes fanatical and starts putting their partisan electoral loyalties ahead of their national loyalty. The Republicans have done exactly this, preferring to wreck the economy rather than cooperate with the president. It's simply appalling that they'd go to such extremes. But this is what their obstinance is leading to.

More shocking is that the next step along this evolution goes from using the power of government to suppress Democratic votes to clandestinely applauding force and even violence to come out on the winning side. That probably won't start happening until after the 2012 election. But if the Republicans lose in 2016, I think it might just be inevitable. Some of those fuckers scare me.