‘I Reject Those Theories’

As much as I like President Obama, this editorial is beneath him. I don’t know who advised him to do it, but it was a mistake.President Obama does not need to defend his plan in this case. Maybe I don’t agree with the economic recovery plan, but the Democrats do not need the Republicans in order to pass this thing, and President Obama did not need Congress to write the bill for him. The mess we see in the press resulted from Congress’ bad judgment in writing a bill that so many people would question.No one argues that infrastructure needs to be upgraded. No one argues that SUSTAINABLE jobs need to be created. No one argues against fixing the housing crisis.If you truly want to build a plan that all sides can roll up their sleeves for, you start with what you know you can get agreement on. President Obama did that prior to his inauguration. What has happened since is a bill the Right would never agree to.I may be wrong, but it is my opinion that in President Obama’s hope to gain compromise from both sides, he accidentally compromised himself instead.The bill we see today is nothing like the bill President Obama hinted at prior to inauguration. “No pork!”, he said.Maybe what is in the bill isn’t really pork, but in general, many Americans think it looks like pork.The editorial President Obama wrote will look like fear mongering to many, and he is so far above that. It doesn’t matter if it actually is fear mongering or not. What it looks like is what the media, and thus Americans, will run with.

I disagree, Pooper. I don’t see his tone as one of fear mongering.Fear mongering is “if the Democrats win this election, we will be hit again” by the terrorists.Fear mongering is “oceans no longer protect us.”Fear mongering is taking to the podium and warning everyone that the country is unprotected and in danger if Congress doesn’t give the President unfettered power to do whatever it wants.Obama has be patiently laying out the facts for weeks now. We all knew the stimulus package would change. No one ever expected that any campaign promise made by any candidate would make it through Congress without substantial change or challenge.Today’s editorial was great. He’s given opposition to his recovery package, on both sides of the aisle, the chance to make their case just as he has.This has been an unusually deliberative process compared to what we’ve seen the past eight years. However, the ramrodding of ‘critical legislation’ that we saw from the Bush administration usually involved helping themselves to more executive power or handing out billions of dollars to industry in the form of tax breaks or awesome no-bid/no-need-to-actually-produce-anything contracts. President Obama has been patient, he has not threatened anyone with political retaliation, he has not taken a tone of ultimate doom if we don’t do as he says, he has asked for cooperation, for new ideas and has gladly changed the legislation when there were objections.He’s spoken directly to the American people more times in the first three weeks of his administration probably more than any President ever has in their first year in office. He wants us to understand what he’s trying to do, why he’s doing it, and what it will mean for us.He’s been the President we haven’t seen in our lifetimes.

Nano,I agree with you about how often he has spoken directly to the American people. It’s one of the things I like most about him. He doesn’t hide. That last President, at times, seemed almost as if he didn’t exist.

PPP – I have to disagree. The President’s editorial isn’t fearmongering if there is truth to it. There are no false qualifiers here, no deception, no lies to persuade. We are in deep, deep trouble and every day we wait it gets worse.I also disagree that he didn’t have to send this message. We’ve been talking about the framing of the argument here for the last two days and how the Republicans have capitalized on a fraction of one percent of the recovery bill for their political advantage to frame it as a pork laden bill. You even said it yourself, “Maybe what is in the bill isn’t really pork, but in general, many Americans think it looks like pork.”

They think it looks like pork because the Democrats are sitting back while the Republicans with the help of the media are framing it as pork. Where is the rebuttal from Democratic leaders explaining why these measures are in the bill?

$200 million on contraception will save $60 billion in government medical costs in the future. Sounds like a good investment. $21 million for the National Mall will put arguably thousands to work to repair the crumbling foundations of our national monuments. The list goes on and on, and instead of the Democratic leaders rebutting these ridiculous pork notions, they are either sitting silently or aren’t getting the air time to rebut. The only Congressman I saw defending contraception was Robert Wexler (D-FL), who explained it rationally and logically and still got a “I don’t understand what you’re talking about,” from an obtuse Phil Gingrey, the same man who’s apologizing to Rush Limbaugh.You’re righton one point. The President compromised too much in the interest of bipartisanship, he backed off to a fault and it was perceived as a validation of GOP complaints. But what happened? They rejected it anyway. And the more it went on, we now see that they would have rejected it no matter what the President did just to send a message.

Well, now it’s the President’s turn to send a message. It’s the Democratic leaders’ turn to send a message and make the obstructionists decide that if they really want to fight this thing, they’re going to have to filibuster for it. No pansy ass cloture votes. Make them filibuster.The only mistake the President made regarding the Washington Post editorial was not going far enough. This was a statement that needed to be made in primetime in front of a national audience.

Can any of you imagine BUSH writing anything? I really believe that his mental capacity was only capable of reading “MY PET GOAT”. God I love President Obama.

Little ol’ me has an idea. I don’t argue the need for a recovery plan. Someone’s got to spend some money, and right now it’s got to be the public, since everyone else is either gun shy or can’t get credit.Why does it all have to be in one bill, though? Why not part it out? A renewable energy growth bill, and a bill to help out states (to keep them from ending programs and cutting staff), and a bill that’s only about infrastructure. Make congress vote on each aspect, rather than one huge hard-to-swallow (and potentially hard to sell to constituents) burrito.If it’s one big bill, repubs can balk by keeping their language vague and scary. Make the legislation more concrete, and their objections need to be more concrete.And if one thing or another doesn’t pass, you can point to a fallen bridge somewhere and say “Hmmm, why didn’t you vote for that very specific infrastructure bill back in ’09, Congressman Douchbag (R), TN?”

AC.. you don’t think this is it do you?? There are economists all over calling for more spending and saying this isn’t big enough. This isn’t all of it. There is more to come. We have a bank bill coming, we have housing coming, we have health care coming. Do I need to go on??? This is just the tip of the ice berg.

Here is partly why I think Pres. Obama did this.. a report in Hotline on Call that stated Rep. Pete Sessions from Texas stated yesterday that they were going to vote against it again. And they are doing it so they will win back the House in 2010. Here is part of his statement.”Insurgency, we understand perhaps a little bit more because of the Taliban,” Sessions said during a meeting yesterday with Hotline editors. “And that is that they went about systematically understanding how to disrupt and change a person’s entire processes.”Yeah thats right, he compared themselves to the Taliban…lolHe then finished the piece by saying this:”He noted that Democrats hold seats in 83 districts that President Bush won in 2000 or 2004, showing that the GOP has opportunities, despite the party’s losses in the last two cycles.Sessions said he believes Republicans can take back the House.”We believe our job is to aim to win the majority,” Sessions said. “I’ve never aimed to come in second place.”That’s the problem.. they are voting not to stop the spending..but to try to win back the house..their pride was hurt and they are feeling it because they think this is the only way they can win back the majority.

@ACWe need the spending to commence ASAP. We don’t have time for a half dozen or so recovery X bills. We have a recovery bill.What makes you think the fascists won’t obstruct a series of simple bills? They will obstruct any and all bills that conflict with their ideology.In many ways one big bill is better than a series of smaller bills. I’d rather fight the deluded ideologues once, rather than over and over again.Federal spending as economic stimulus is in conflict with their ideology. They will never vote for this stuff since to do so is a tacit admission that their ideology is wrong. Hell will freeze over before they will admit that.I agree with Carl, this should have been a primetime speech.

“The writer is president of the United States.”Oh, THAT Barack Obama! Ok. I agree that the editorial may seem “beneath” Obama, and certainly by itself it’s not going to get the job done. What percentage of the American public reads the editorial section of the WP anyway? It’s a loud cry in an empty forest. No one hears it but the MSM and the blogosphere.That said it doesn’t hurt either, and if he can accompany this editorial with a primetime speech directly to the American people basically saying the same thing almost word-for-word, than I think we’ll have a winner.

PPP,My employer thrived in the Great Depression. Two weeks ago they put memos in our cubicles asking us to “volunteer” for part time hours. Then, just to punctuate the memo, the janitor started unscrewing two of every three light bulbs — and the Assistant Manager took all the recent hires into a little room, one by one, to lay them off.We got the message.THAT’S what fear feels like, Poop. To those of us with actual jobs in the actual economy, Obama isn’t fearmongering — he’s fighting for us.

He may just give a primetime speech, Lee.I’m beginning to think that maybe he’s trying to play on the same field as the Republicans. He’s on a media blitz, just as they are. He has his YouTube address, he goes before the cameras with the networks – even Fox- regularly, he has updates through the White House website (I think – I’m not sure if they’ve ironed out the kinks), and now he’s doing editorials. He’s trying to communicate with every demographic on their turf. There are still people that read newspapers and editorials. A minority, to be sure, but newspapers probably wouldn’t bother with them if they thought they weren’t being heard by someone.He’s not ignoring any medium. Well, maybe skywriting, but it’s just Week Three. They may have that planned for Week Four…