Frank Rich:They Sure Showed That Obama

[cal04]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/opinion/15rich.html?ref=opinion

AM I crazy, or wasn’t the Obama presidency pronounced dead just days ago? Obama had “all but lost control of the agenda in Washington,” declared Newsweek on Feb. 4 as it wondered whether he might even get a stimulus package through Congress. “Obama Losing Stimulus Message War” was the headline at Politico a day later. At the mostly liberal MSNBC, the morning host, Joe Scarborough, started preparing the final rites. Obama couldn’t possibly eke out a victory because the stimulus package was “a steaming pile of garbage.”

Less than a month into Obama’s term, we don’t (and can’t) know how he’ll fare as president. The compromised stimulus package, while hardly garbage, may well be inadequate. Timothy Geithner’s uninspiring and opaque stab at a bank rescue is at best a place holder and at worst a rearrangement of the deck chairs on the TARP-Titanic, where he served as Hank Paulson’s first mate.

But we do know this much. Just as in the presidential campaign, Obama has once again outwitted the punditocracy and the opposition. The same crowd that said he was a wimpy hope-monger who could never beat Hillary or get white votes was played for fools again.

On Wednesday, as a stimulus deal became a certainty on Capitol Hill, I asked David Axelrod for his take on this Groundhog Day relationship between Obama and the political culture.

“It’s why our campaign was not based in Washington but in Chicago,” he said. “We were somewhat insulated from the echo chamber. In the summer of ’07, the conventional wisdom was that Obama was a shooting star; his campaign was irretrievably lost; it was a ludicrous strategy to focus on Iowa; and we were falling further and further behind in the national polls.” But even after the Iowa victory, this same syndrome kept repeating itself. When Obama came out against the gas-tax holiday supported by both McCain and Clinton last spring, Axelrod recalled, “everyone in D.C. thought we were committing suicide.”

The stimulus battle was more of the same. “This town talks to itself and whips itself into a frenzy with its own theories that are completely at odds with what the rest of America is thinking,” he says. Once the frenzy got going, it didn’t matter that most polls showed support for Obama and his economic package: “If you watched cable TV, you’d see our support was plummeting, we were in trouble. It was almost like living in a parallel universe.”

For Axelrod, the moral is “not just that Washington is too insular but that the American people are a lot smarter than people in Washington think.”

[BlooInBloo]

Well do I remember DUers calling Obama a "weak" President. A few days ago.

Fools.

[tabatha]

4. He has an 80% rating as a strong leader.

A truly strong leader does not have to be like Bush.

[malaise]

1. Rich nails the losers

perfectly.

[cal04]

3. he sure did.

I wish I could post the whole op ed
I love this line
Lindsey Graham throws made-for-YouTube hissy fits on the Senate floor

[malaise]

9. It's beautifully written

Still we really ought to be filling up the hacks mailboxes and remind them they've been sooooooooooo wrong for sooooooooooooo long that it's fun watching them believe they have one shred of credibility left.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

59. that'd be good, but what I'd really prefer is a deluge of mail to the M$$$M

the pukes will continue to be the nasty cockroaches they are, but what drives me crazy is the damned media hiding that from view.

Propagandizing the American mind, sound-biting us into a state of induced frontal lobotomy, "expertly" orating on and on, switching facts and research for supposition and innuendo until no one who watches them has any idea of what critical thinking entails.....

oh well, on the other hand, polls show such high approval rates for Obama, that obviously people in general are doing a better job of seeing through the bullshit than I'm giving credit for.

[dalaigh lllama]

10. Loved his last paragraph

Republicans will also be judged by the voters. If they want to obstruct and filibuster while the economy is in free fall, the president should call their bluff and let them go at it. In the first four years after F.D.R. took over from Hoover, the already decimated ranks of Republicans in Congress fell from 36 to 16 in the Senate and from 117 to 88 in the House. The G.O.P. is so insistent that the New Deal was a mirage it may well have convinced itself that its own sorry record back then didn’t happen either.

Let's hope history repeats itself.}(

[malaise]

13. It's perfect

In a fair world he'd be on all the shows by tomorrow. We'll have to wait for KO or Rachel.

[DCKit]

33. Ouch!!! n/t

[mediaman007]

42. I want to send that paragraph to all my "pukie" friends, who tell me

that the New Deal didn't work!

[truedelphi]

67. The last paragraph is a thing of beauty

But what is a real joy forever is this:
Onbama beat back the Repugs on Nov 4th 2008. HE WON WITH A MANDATE. PERIOD.

And the few people in the country that didn't vote for him are too STOOPID to realize maybe they should be gracious towards the bi-partisianship that Obama calls for.

The weirder element of the Republican party has been shitting all over everything for so long that now they think shitting on themselves is a logical game plan!

[Kahuna]

18. Yet, the M$M and repukes will be again next week, trying to trip up the wily Obama...

And again they will end up with egg on their face.

[inna]

21. how do you guys get all those hearts?? can i have one, too?? :) nt

[inna]

72. ~~WOW~~!!! you guys ROCK~!!!

LOVE YA, DU!!!

:loveya:

:bounce:

:bounce:

:bounce:

[tabatha]

2. Yes, they don't fall for what comes out of the bloviators' mouths anymore.

Hopefully, one day the media will wake up.

[AlbertCat]

50. Hopefully, one day the media will wake up.

Oh, it's awake. It's just doing what it has been doing since the Gingrich "revolution": being the "right wing media" while crying "librul media". It just is so obvious now that the WH has different talking points. The media's current mission is the same as before: trip up the Dems and air a made up reality where Repugs are never wrong.

[silverweb]

5. Great piece.

My favorite:

Steele’s argument against the stimulus package is that "in the history of mankind" no "federal, state or local" government has ever "created one job." As it happens, among the millions of jobs created by the government are the federal investigators now pursuing Steele for alleged financial improprieties in his failed 2006 Senate campaign.

Perfect! :rofl:

[Odin2005]

16. OMG, you owe me a new keyboard, LOL!!!

That is absurdly hilarious. :rofl:

[patrice]

23. Somebody needs to tell that to the War Profiteers previously known as Blackwater and to

Haliburton, Brown and Root, and Bechtel.

[opihimoimoi]

6. The GOP Has Lost Creds big time...They lost their credibility when they backed Bush and then McCrane

They have been wrong for 10 years and its finally got to the Middle Class....them Pubs don't deserve the time of day...ya can't trust them...

They have become a JOKE

[Lugnut]

24. Here's the best part.

Most of us know it.

[opihimoimoi]

28. and they don't....too delusional

[BlancheSplanchnik]

61. WE knew it for a LONG LONG time, before the general population did

Why or how we were so far ahead of the curve, I don't know. Well, OK, intelligence has something to do with it, but still....

I'm glad and at the same time, it was hard knowing so certainly while being surrounded by such ignorance. I still have leftover resentment, I guess, at the retards at work (for example), who can't see the obvious now, and shake their heads sadly, commiserating together on how evil Obama is because he's not "christian", kills babies. (btw, I include the fucking CHAIR of THE DEPT.--Hypocrite extraordinaire--in that little prayer circle. Barf!) :wtf: :crazy:

[mikehiggins]

64. Most of us appreciate the Federal Government, we just don't trust it

That, IMHO, is why progressives are always ready to be critical. They (we) don't attribute superhuman powers to a human institution. We know that for every dedicated public servant there is at least one solely in it for all he or she can get.

None of us beleive(d) for a second that "our" guys were pure as the driven snow. All we beleived was that their hearts were in the right place, even if their hands were in our pockets.

n.b. When a dem pol sticks his hand in your pocket he's looking for your wallet. The GOPukes? You take your chances...

[Occam Bandage]

7. The morons on the right and the morons on the left are going to be proven wrong

a hell of a lot more often than they're going to be proven right.

[madrchsod]

8. best article i`ve read in a long time about the real america

that obama has tapped into for his strength. the republicans have become irrelevant in the minds of the american people. it`s time our leadership in the house and senate realize the american people will hold them and the democratic party accountable if they fail.

[babylonsister]

11. "Obama has once again outwitted the punditocracy and the opposition."

I love Frank Rich! Now I'll read the rest of the story. Thanks!

[elizfeelinggreat]

12. k & r

for this!

"American people are a lot smarter than people in Washington think"

[Odin2005]

14. Obama is playing the Pukes and pundits like a fiddle. It's incredible to watch.

He gets us going "WTF is he doing" for a while then we realize he just checkmated the idiots! :rofl:

[ProSense]

15. They're stuck on stupid

Nice photos

[ErinBerin84]

17. lol

for the Joe Scarborough reference. Plus, MSNBC does not really get lib (does Chris even count anymore? He has seemed pretty with the Repubs on the stimulus and seems to be hailing Gregg as a hero, too bipolar to be consistent) until 5 or 6. Until then, they have to comspensate by asking questions like (from Chuck Todd to Obama) "Will you veto the bill if it does not get enough Republican support?" Bleh.

[BlooInBloo]

19. Public Enemy was more succinct: Don't Believe The Hype.

[annabanana]

20. Surely Frank Rich has copped onto the fact that "the Villagers"

have little to no idea what the people of America think or don't think, know or don't know. . .

They are so far behind the Country that it is nearly laughable. The great tragedy is that the Villagers have control of most of the levers.

[Parker CA]

22. Rich paints a scene of desperation in which the pukes are the stars.

As he lays the issues out on the table, often in ways that can only be interpreted in comedic light, it is clear that the pukes will only continue to counsel one another to stay the course, and that they truly believe their strategy and tactics will lead them down the road of success rather than down the one which they are actually traveling, that toward miserable irrelevance.

May 2010 be a similar bloodbath for the GOP in both the House and Senate as was the era which followed the New Deal.

[Me.]

27. Must Run In The Family

His son is one of the SNL writers

[Parker CA]

29. Didn't know that. Thanks!

[City Lights]

30. Excellent read...thanks!

Recommended.

[Arugula Latte]

25. Once again ...

[Undercurrent]

26. Obama has decimated his opponent. Again.

While they are busy reassuring each other that he is weakling, he flashes a smile, and slides a knife between their ribs. Chicago style.

:evilgrin:

[Bette Noir]

54. President Heartthrob is playing 3-dimensional chess

While the rest of Washington is playing tic tac toe.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

62. President Heartthrob---HEEE!!

Love it!

[BrklynLiberal]

31. I am enjoying Mr Rich more and more

[deaniac21]

32. I really miss his theater reviews. He was the best!

[anonymous171]

34. Rope-a-dope. nt

[Samantha]

35. I agree with everything in this thread but one minor point

"... the American people are a lot smarter than people in Washington think." I live just a few miles outside of Washington, and I have been saying that a lot for years (often here on DU). I think there are a lot of Washingtonians that think the Federal Government tries to play the people for fools. And yes, we are a lot smarter than these representatives, Senators, Supreme Court judges and various administrative personnel recognize. In fact, many of us are a lot smarter than they are; we have just not been as quick as we should have been to try and wrestle back control of our own government. But we have our game in play now, and we intend to win.

Sam

[elleng]

36. So its great that he's signing the Stimulus bill in Denver,

dining in Chicago, and hanging out around the country. He WON'T be identified as a WASHINGTON pol for '12!

[Hekate]

37. "Having checked the box on attempted bipartisanship, Obama can now move in for the kill"

I absolutely love this paragraph:

> The G.O.P. doesn’t recognize that it emerged from the stimulus battle even worse off
> than when it started. That obliviousness gives the president the opening to win more
> ambitious policy victories than last week’s. Having checked the box on attempted
> bipartisanship, Obama can now move in for the kill.

This IS the Obama Strategy. Whatever you call it, it works.

:evilgrin: :rofl: :evilgrin: :rofl: :evilgrin: :rofl: :evilgrin: :rofl:

Hekate

[opihimoimoi]

38. As they say in China.......NO SHIT......The Obama Mana Works!!!! Big Time....

:hi:

[Hekate]

39. Shhhh. Some of dese haoles don't want to hear about mana-- too spooky-kine...

But yeah, I think he's got it.

:toast:

Hekate

[opihimoimoi]

40. LOL....ok ok......da buggah gitum.....

:toast:

[Surya Gayatri]

41. K & R.....not least for this sublimely

succinct summary from Rich's piece:

"Perhaps the stimulus held its own because the public, in defiance of Washington’s condescending

assumption, was smart enough to figure out that the government can’t create jobs without spending and

that Bush-era Republicans have no moral authority to lecture about deficits."

Wish I could write with that laser-like clarity! SG

[Myrina]

43. I must have missed something ...

.. because unless Prez O issues a 5000 word signing statement on that POS Stimulus, or vetoes it altogether, the Pukes have won.
The way its been watered down and filled with tax cuts that aren't going to do shit for pretty much anyone ... is only going to make it a giant anvil around his neck, and make any similar initiatives nearly impossible to get passed.


This was not a victory, IMO. Obama got punked and the Democrats in the Senate helped it happen. :(

[trumad]

46. Not to astute---are you?

[BumRushDaShow]

49. It's a victory when

right after passage, repukes were actually out there in the media telling their constituents what goodies they brought home for them. :crazy:

WASHINGTON — Rep. John Mica was gushing after the House of Representatives voted Friday to pass the big stimulus plan.

"I applaud President Obama's recognition that high-speed rail should be part of America's future," the Florida Republican beamed in a press release.

Yet Mica had just joined every other GOP House member in voting against the $787.2 billion economic recovery plan.

Republicans echoed their party line over and over during the debate: "This bill is loaded with wasteful deficit spending on the majority's favorite government programs," as Minority Whip Eric Cantor, R-Va., put it.

But Mica wasn't alone in touting what he saw as the bill's virtues. Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, also had nice things to say in a press release.

Young boasted that he "won a victory for the Alaska Native contracting program and other Alaska small business owners last night in H.R. 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act."


More... http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/62181.html

Repukes - check. Obama - checkmate! :rofl:

[shellgame26]

44. I'm glad

he has pointed out the MSM hypocrisy and the fact that people are not buying their swill anymore.

[Left Coast2020]

74. He needs a few more of these to insure the Party of Morons

IMPLODES :nuke: Both the MSM and repugs needs to have their asses handed to them a few more times. They certanly deserve it for 14 years of hell.

Thank you for the Heart :hi:

[ellie]

45. Nice read!

Thanks! I especially like this part:

In the first four years after F.D.R. took over from Hoover, the already decimated ranks of Republicans in Congress fell from 36 to 16 in the Senate and from 117 to 88 in the House.


Oh please, oh please, oh please, oh please

[BumRushDaShow]

47. Probably one of the best editorials I have read in some time.

OMG Rich just nailed it - item after item after item including in his masterful description of the repuke version of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, where they do something that no Democrat has ever done in a similar situation - celebrating that defeat in high style instead of endlessly hand-wringing. Their bizarro world, carefully crafted by ilk like Limballs, Get-rich, and O'Liely for the purported dumbed-down masses (but in reality, only believed by themselves) is clearly revealed in their reaction to the latest smackdown - a twisted response consistent with their insistence that day is night, up is down, black is white, war is peace, and a loss is a win. :crazy:

...the Republicans are busy high-fiving themselves and celebrating “victory.” Even in defeat, they are still echoing the 24/7 cable mantra about the stimulus’s unpopularity. This self-congratulatory mood is summed up by a Wall Street Journal columnist who wrote that “the House Republicans’ zero votes for the Obama presidency’s stimulus ‘package’ is looking like the luckiest thing to happen to the G.O.P.’s political fortunes since Ronald Reagan switched parties.” There hasn’t been this much delusional giddiness in these ranks since Monica Lewinsky promised a surefire Republican sweep in the 1998 midterms.

But the best part was this:

Republicans will also be judged by the voters. If they want to obstruct and filibuster while the economy is in free fall, the president should call their bluff and let them go at it. In the first four years after F.D.R. took over from Hoover, the already decimated ranks of Republicans in Congress fell from 36 to 16 in the Senate and from 117 to 88 in the House. The G.O.P. is so insistent that the New Deal was a mirage it may well have convinced itself that its own sorry record back then didn’t happen either.

Let us hope that like what happened back then, history will repeat itself once more in 2010 - the complete DESTRUCTION of the GOP.

[mwb970]

52. 16 Republicans in the Senate!

Now that's change I can believe in. And let's go for double-digit Republican numbers (like 88) in the House too, while we're at it. Given the total failure of conservative "ideas" and the worthlessness of their "leaders" and spokesmen, this is the natural level that they are headed for. Thank God.

[Moochy]

48. "mostly liberal MSNBC" Ah MSNBC loves it when NYT calles them that!

I bet it almost makes up for having to play progressive shows for two hours of the day!

Newsweek's hacks, The Politico Astroturfers/Anti-Blogger-News-Service and GEMSNBCJoeScarborough are the blunt force instruments with which we are being clubbed.

Thankfully, people are wising up!

Great Editorial!

[Bette Noir]

55. And Pat Buchanan.

I want to turn off the TV machine every time that evil troglodyte shows up.

But I *do* turn of the TV when I see Mika Brezhinsky. That's one steaming pile of stupid.

That MSNBC can be called "mostly liberal" is a tribute to the power of Keith and Rachel; they overpower the whole rest of the lineup.

[LyndonDelanoObama]

51. ancestors saved by the New Deal

Frank Rich was right when he implied that "Some Americans" would reject the New Deal was a failure B.S because they "may even have ancestors saved from penury by the New Deal"

This line applies to me. My Grandpa (who is dead now) told me that his family was saved from eviction and starvation because his father worked for the W.P.A.

I wrote that googly-eyed b*st**d Mitch McConnell a very nasty e-mail telling him what I thought of his propaganda about the New Deal. The Republican leadership is delusional at best.

[susu369]

69. My favorite part, too

"Bush and Cheney kept us safe" and "the New Deal didn't work" are two talking points that are not scoring.

[Turbineguy]

53. It's all part of the same plan

On Fox News they are a razor thin margin away from calling Obama a jiggaboo, the other news outlets couch it in more "reasonable" sounding tone.

But the GOP wants this to fail. They believe their salvation lies in failure.

The cannibals in the finance sector want a continuation of the repub granted license to "earn".

Myself, I would consider this: Do I want to fuck with a heavily armed population of Americans? Sure, should it come to that, there will be O'Reilly adled wingnuts shooting "lubrals", but that only goes so far.

Is Rush Limbaugh bailing out his listeners who are losing their jobs and homes? Not bloody likely.

The GOP can talk all they want but their base is shrinking. And the more they screw up the more it shrinks.

The conservatives have brought us to the edge of the abyss. They won't be happy unless we all jump in.

[Jack Rabbit]

56. K/R

[Kolesar]

57. GOPs will be remembered for *NOTHING* from this debate

They have nothing to run on, no message, no issues. The Democrats are very well set up for the 2010 election.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

58. Obama's vision seems to be rooted in the long-term goals

And he pursues those goals with determination.

(for the good of the people, let me add that. Neo-con and rwnuts leaders and all those creeplepeople have a long term vision too, but it's more like a vision of Scorched Earth....)



it's like an I Ching quote in someone's sig line here (apologies, I can't remember whose):

"The best way to fight evil is to make energetic progress in the good"

[Greybnk48]

60. With the exception of Keith and Rachael, watching cable news, for me,

is often surreal, and at times bizarre. Maybe it's my age (60) and the fact that I spent most of my life watching Cronkite, Rather, and others like them. What's on now is not what I would call news. It's closer to political gossip.

[wroberts189]

63. another good snippet

But, as he said in Fort Myers last week, he will ultimately be judged by his results. If the economy isn’t turned around, he told the crowd, then “you’ll have a new president.” The stimulus bill is only a first step on that arduous path. The biggest mistake he can make now is to be too timid. This country wants a New Deal, including on energy and health care, not a New Deal lite. Far from depleting Obama’s clout, the stimulus battle instead reaffirmed that he has the political capital to pursue the agenda of change he campaigned on.

Republicans will also be judged by the voters. If they want to obstruct and filibuster while the economy is in free fall, the president should call their bluff and let them go at it. In the first four years after F.D.R. took over from Hoover, the already decimated ranks of Republicans in Congress fell from 36 to 16 in the Senate and from 117 to 88 in the House. The G.O.P. is so insistent that the New Deal was a mirage it may well have convinced itself that its own sorry record back then didn’t happen either.

[SeattleGirl]

65. Bravo, Frank!

Republicans are indeed "living in that parallel universe...."

I listen to them, and my brain hurts. They still think they are in charge, but every day, they just show how fucking out of touch they are.

Fine, Repukes. Just keep talking, and whining, and throwing hissy fits, and soon you will be completely irrelevant.

And when that happens, there will be no complaints from me.

[George_Bailey]

66. Faboom, Frank.

George Bailey
http://welcomebacktopottersville.blogspot.com/

[alfredo]

68. The graphic of the shark and Obama might be a reference to a story called "Shine."

It's about a black man that stows away on an ocean liner. He gets caught and the captain of the ship told him he can stay if he shines the captain's shoes when he yelled "Shine."

Well, the ship hits an iceberg and sinks. The captain and shine survive. The Captain yells for Shine to help him and Shine replied, "Shine over the ocean, Shine over the sea, shut your big mouth and swim like me." Later as shine is swimming a shark shows up. Shine starts swimming as fast as he can. The shark pulls up to Shine and says, "Shine over the ocean, Shine over the sea miss one stroke and you belong to me."

[chrisa]

70. The MSM needs Obama to fail.

A good President isn't good for ratings.

[Kurovski]

71. K&R. (nt)

[pipi_k]

73. Anybody remember "Columbo"?

He was a TV detective who played along with the people he was out to arrest for various crimes. Had them convinced he was a clueless dolt. They always ended up letting their guard down.

Then he went in for the "kill"

They never even saw it coming....


I think Obama is a lot like Columbo.

People underestimate him at their own peril...

:)

[Hekate]

75. "Just one more question..." I loved rumply Columbo, but Obama is soooo smooth. nt

[WillieW]

76. For crying out loud - give the man a chance!