WP chimes in on cue: "Robert Gibbs was right to criticize the 'professional left'"

[mike r]

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2010/08/robert_gibbs_was_right_to_crit.html

Robert Gibbs was right to criticize the 'professional left'
By Ruth Marcus

I'm with Gibbs.

At times I've found White House press secretary Robert Gibbs to be unnecessarily irascible, and maybe his lashing out at the constant grumbling of the "professional left" wasn't the best tactic. You want the base worked up -- but for you, not about you.

Nonetheless, his basic point was spot on: The complainers from the left are, in some combination, myopic, forgetful and deranged.

Gibbs is far from the only White House official with these frustrations, but he's the first to share them on the record and, therefore, the first to walk them back. He issued a statement longer than the original offending words acknowledging that he may have spoken "inartfully" -- which is Washington-speak for honestly -- and confessing to watching "too much cable."

That last part may be true. As to the rest of it -- Gibbs was right the first time...

[Hello_Kitty]

1. Myopic, forgetful, AND deranged? Wow, Ruth, you really know how to win people over.

:wow:

[Amonester]

3. It's beginning to look like some sort of a 'contagious' desease.

And one that makes them lose memory...

Ruth, stupid Gibbs wasn't the first one... You forgot Rahm.

Anyway, get well soon, Ruth, and trash that mirror you're projecting away ASAP, please.

[Skittles]

2. fuck off, Ruth

take on teabaggers to find what "deranged" really means

[Hell Hath No Fury]

7. What you said.

:puke: on Ruth.

[tnlefty]

8. Would you please go kick her ass?

I would appreciate it.

[Demeter]

4. Angry, Certainly--Mad with Grief

but deranged? I'll leave that title to the people who make promises they don't keep and then insult their strongest supporters.

[Doctor_J]

5. Post isn't muuch different from the Moonie Times

Marcus has bashed the president on any number of topics. She finally found some common ground with him.

[Bluenorthwest]

6. She says it was a lousy tactic, then continues it

She adds more words from the OFA lexicon, such as deranged, but she apparently is as unable as Gibbs to cite even one example of that which they criticize, and fail to name anyone they see as being in the wrong.
Anyone lambasting a group by using the 'some say' routine is simply making stuff up. Who is 'some'? Which cable talkers, which comments, which bloggers?
Claiming you hear something 'all the time' that you can not show you have heard even once is called lying, the bearing of false witness against others. Some say.

[JohnWxy]

9. Really Ruth, you're NOT the sharpest tool in the shed. Much of the frustration with

Pres. is the WAY he goes about not getting what might be obtainable. If you always open with a compromise position you'll end up getting something even less effectual. He should at least start out committing to a meaningful position, program or bill and fight for it. If in the eleventh hour you compromise then at least you know you did about as well as could be expected. Starting out a negotiations by giving in half way is not how to proceed.

By the way criticizing your own troops while treating your actual enemies ("we will make this Obama's Waterloo."; "We'll be the party of 'NO'.") isn't a particularly smart way to operate. With this major gaff of the administration, I for the first time, am beginning to wonder if Obama's good days aren't behind him.

You don't win wars by putting down your troops.

"Hillary? You busy in 2012?"

[pmorlan1]

10. Go Away Ruth

I'm hardly surprised that ole Ruthie would support Gibbs comments. After all it's the same Ruth Marcus who didn't want the Justice Department to hold the Bush administration torturers accountable. Ruth is a typical beltway columnist. She always supports the status quo.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/30/AR2008123002396.html