Cooper backs off White House claim (said Obama encouraged him to vote no)

[Enrique]

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0209/18411.html

A prominent Blue Dog Democratic congressman, under apparent pressure from the Obama administration, moved quickly Wednesday morning to clarify eyebrow-raising comments in which he said White House officials encouraged him to speak out against the House stimulus bill.

Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.), a leading deficit hawk and one of 11 House Democrats to oppose the bill, said in a radio interview over the weekend that he “got some quiet encouragement from the Obama folks for what I’m doing.”

In comments that would underscore Republican complaints about the bill, Cooper suggested the administration officials were not happy with the legislation that is the centerpiece of the new president’s agenda.

"They know it’s a messy bill, and they wanted a clean bill,” Cooper, a Nashville-area congressman, said Sunday in an interview with Liberadio, a left-leaning Tennessee radio program.

(...)

[Thrill]

1. Someone on this board said Cooper couldn't be trusted