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We’re looking at this all wrong

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  January 30th, 2010 at 02:28 PM  | 

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I was thinking today while I was out making a quick trip: We on the right have fouled up badly our responses to the visit President Obama made to the GOP retreat.

We’ve spent the whole time bashing Republicans and talking about how great Obama looks on television, when we missed what the true, underlying message was: The President spent his first year in office trying to ignore us, but now has had to come crawling back like the miserable failure that he is.

He’s the President, so he’ll never look like he’s on his hands and knees begging for whatever legislative scraps we’ll deign to give him, but that’s precisely what he’s doing now. He’s accomplished not one major component of his long-run agenda: Card Check, Cap and Tax, Obamacare, repeal NAFTA, close Guantanamo Bay, retreat from Iraq. He’s done nothing without us, and now he needs us.

The magnitude of this failure is magnified by the huge Congressional majorities his party has commanded, including the filibuster-proof Senate majority he had between the seating of Senator Franken and the victory of Senator-elect Brown. The President is on a street corner hoping we’ll buy an apple or a pencil from him. He’s failed that badly as a President so far. Let’s remember that, and remind both ourselves and the President’s supporters of that.

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COMMENTS

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  • acat

    … the couple sound bites that will get recycled into campaign fodder.

    … the thin skin clearly on display.

    … the attempt to distance from Pelosi and Reid.

    Yeah. We need to set the right tone on this.

    Mew

  • SoFiMil

    He looked down to read half his speech. On the key policy parts, he was looked down, then he’d glance up, then look down again to give his reasoning for his policy.

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens
  • SoFiMil

    Hold on. Hold on. No, no, no.

  • muffin

    I am begging the GOP to help me pass something, anything. Please?

  • SoFiMil

    Nope. Too late.

  • Maelstrom

    He seemed to be offering his hand only for the cameras. To me, he appeared disingenuous and righteous. He listened, but was not hearing. Republicans should do whats best for the country and deny his socialist agenda at every turn.

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    It doesn’t matter whether he was disingenous or not. He’s coming to us hat in hand.

    It’s an admission that his first year , rejecting us, was a total failure.

  • redneck_hippie

    from the minority opposition.

    This Is Great News.

    Won’t work, because all the time he’s pretending he’s not a Marxist, he is also revealing his condescending attitude by ridiculing (see Erick Brockaway’s Alinsky diary) our guys for knowing he’s not a Bolshevik, but a Marxist.

  • lukematthews

    He didn’t really make out well on the screen. He sounded more like a petulant child than he did a statesman. Moreover, the press has tried to make as much out of this pathetic attempt and even his well wishers are swallowing their indignation at his behavior. His outburst about not being a Bolshevik wasn’t a good move. He’s acknowledging the public’s perception of him has swerved so far left, and that ain’t a good thing, for him.

    Overall, his disingenuous remarks will only serve him poorly as we catch him in more rhetorical flourishes that don’t reflect reality. Quite frankly, the public view of the liberal establishment, press, Congress, his policies, and even him, are so negative, such political gamesmanship will not serve him well.

  • http://slcliberty.blogivists.com randy streu

    and that’s exactly the phrasing I think of almost every time I hear him speak. He complains about Bush. He complains about detractors. A flowery and long-winded footstomping is still a temper tantrum.

  • bk

    “… the filibuster-proof Senate majority he had between the seating of Senator Franken and the victory of Senator-elect Brown.”

    should be

    “the filibuster-proof Senate majority he had between the seating of Senator Franken and the seating of Senator-elect Brown.”

    Kirk is still seated and voting, so technically they still have 60 votes even though they seem cowed into avoiding anything controversial for now using that 60th vote.

  • AceInTX

    …and will have a heaping helping of humble pie for desert before this is over…He may choke, and gag…and pound the table to get it down…

    but it’s going to go down one way or the other…and as hard as I’ve been on Republicans…I have to give them credit for sticking together and holding the caucus together even if they’re not as affective as they could have been.

  • wbb1950

    I said the same thing on a different blog recently:

    This is in line with what I was saying above.. His game is to continue pressing our buttons to maintain his power and to make promises he will never keep either because he never intended to or because he does not know how to govern. Our game is not to get sucked into rebutting him point by point on every issue/ We must step back from time to time and not lose sight of the forest for the trees. Indeed, our game is to show that he is failing and it is because his approach to governing is all smoke, mirrors?and celebrity. The bumper sticker for 2012 should read: Obama? No. Failure is not an option.

  • AceInTX

    It was a mistake for them because it showed him as the thin skinned pretender that he really is!

  • SoFiMil
  • han_solo

    >but now has had to come crawling back like the miserable failure that he is.

    Too bad. He should STILL GET the cold shoulder for 3 more years.

    As soon as republicans start ‘dealing’, I am going to actively campaign against them.

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens
  • http://slcliberty.blogivists.com randy streu

    nt

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    What’s her position on capital gains?

  • http://slcliberty.blogivists.com randy streu

    and also, your mother is here with us.

    She seemed less a politician per se, and more an MSNBC political correspondent.

  • RJD

    nt

  • Common_Cents

    He made a joke about saying something nice about Paul Ryan, but then said he didn’t know if Ryan would have a primary challenger and wouldn’t want to do that to him.

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    You can facebook/digg/etc.

  • jfindl2

    n/t

  • kowalski

    Obama started out as a myth and then he was constructed into a President who has enormous influence over policy. None of that has changed: he’s being a little more reticent because he has been chastened and he’s worried for his Party’s chances in the next election, but let’s remember something:

    Obama will still be the President after the 2010 elections. His prerogatives aren’t going to change so much as they’ll undergo an adjustment. So he’ll talk about creating jobs, he’ll give $30 billion in taxpayer money to small banks to try and start a little fire in the lending market, he’ll take the tiniest of scalpels to the Federal Budget: but in two more years what he will have succeeded in doing is convincing people that it meant anything.

    As long as a he has a free-spending Democrat majority in Congress, all of this is rearguard defense and Wizard of Oz smoke and mirrors.

    In the meantime he’s going to continue to try and make Republicans in Congress (who are just as addicited to federal spending as he is) less and less reluctant. It’s a simple technique:

    “Oh, I know you guys were right. Let’s listen to you for a while, blah blah blah.”

    The Federal Budget in 2011 and 2012 will be even worse than this one is. Especially after this gathering of the Nice Words, it’s going to get worse, and Republicans will be just as reponsible. This is what you call a “roll over onto your back moment” so that the other party feels a little remorse and decides to be just like you.

  • kowalski

    And what is going to happen in the next few years is that at the moment of Maximum Danger, Obama and his acolytes will (just as they did yesterday) extend an Olive Branch — because they know if it is taken, they’ll get the rest of what they want over 3 years instead of 1.

    Don’t fall for it.

  • majorkong

    Hell no! Why do Republicans seem to believe they have to play nice? Democrats reveal themselves as street-smart, smack-down thugs. Moreover, I do not in any way believe that Obama is trying to win over some support from across the aisle. As for his programs; pound a stake through their hearts, watch the corpse for two weeks, burn it, then cast the ashes to the wind. Like I said at the start: HELL NO!!!

  • kowalski

    The only thing Axelrod wants is for Republicans to lay off his man, and start agreeing with him. He wants them to feel ashamed for opposing his Fraud President, so they’ll start letting him get what he wants.

  • kowalski

    It’s just an unexpected plot twist in the narrative of the continuous campaign. Every day it’s going to be a slightly revised story. In the end, nothing is going to happen except that Obama will succeed in making Republicans more like him, mark my words.

  • kowalski

    I’m losing faith in our theory of government: I don’t believe it functions any longer. I don’t think our government really works for people — it exists to do nothing but spend their money, and it is controlled really by media portrayals and consultants, to a degree that has never before been seen in our history.

    I’m rapidly coming to believe that our government is a lie, in other words. It’s not something we should be willingly acquiescing to.

  • Richard Mullins

    then he’s vulnerable. I really think he did a bad job yesterday and this go a long way to but the “Master of his Domain” on ice. So we need to make him look like a bumbling idiot for the next 3 yrs(or less). That should deflate him.

  • jsmiddleton4

    My framing of this little meeting is giving him enough rope to hang himself. Which he of course did.

  • rbdwiggins

    increasing the statutory limit on public debt by $1.9 Trillion to $14.2 Trillion should have been considered to be a very controversial vote. It’s double the stated cost for the first decade of Obamacare.

    The Dems were cowed into voting for its passage.

  • dwarfmama

    Treasury Secretary, 1981-85?

    Yeah, I know it was a typo. But it still works.

  • Scope

    there isn’t anything about anyone named Regan in the educational system’s history books. I vaguely remember the name, but, you’ll have to give me some hints.

  • Scope

    that way he would have kept snapping back for more Republican punches.

  • http://slcliberty.blogivists.com randy streu

    Just as the trouble with the economy isn’t our theory of economics.

    The trouble, in both cases, is the bastardization of what it was meant to be, and the willingness of an activist media to pretend it never occurred.

  • nivlem

    He attacked the Repubicans in the SOTU for not opposing his plans and not putting forth any plans. This was intended to make the weakneed Republicans questions themselves.

    Then he comes to the Republican’s Retreat as a show of compomise. They
    never do and will not compromise.

    This whole sceme is to get some votes from the weak Republicans who are
    worried on how their will appear to the public.All he needs are a couple to fold, and vote in his favor.

    Next the media will focus on what a galant gesture he made at the Republican Retreat, and how the Republicans thumbed their noses at him.
    Story after story will be played out in the media, and extreeme pressure will
    be applied to a targeted number of Republicans to vote with Obama’s agenda.

    The ultimate goal is to win over one or two Republicans.

  • http://slcliberty.blogivists.com randy streu

    He’s not approaching the Republicans from a position of strength; he doesn’t have any. Instead, he’s coming as a whipped and cornered dog, uncertain of whether to beg or to bite.

    Getting Republicans over on his side on healthcare isn’t going to win them votes — they know it, and he knows they know it.

  • ranfin

    Republicans win this in several ways:

    1. The key to a very large victory in November is independents. It is impossible to overstate the degree to which independents value civility. The will look at the Republicans inviting Obama to a dialogue and compare that to what they see from Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reed. Need I say more?
    2. Obama is on film, making God knows how many statements that will come back to bite him in the derierre in November.
    3. Obama had to acknowlege Republicans have been offering ideas…he undercuts his own credibility yet again.

    I’m pleased to see Republicans thinkings strategically for once.

  • writeblock

    While the staging put Republicans at a disadvantage, the outlandish fact that he was there at all sent another message: that he knows the GOP is on the rise, that the tea parties represent a real threat, that Republicans will be the beneficiaries of real power come 2010. He’s been checked and the chess board doesn’t give him much room to maneuver.

  • http://slcliberty.blogivists.com randy streu

    he’s something far worse. He (or whoever has the reigns) is telling a massive amount of calculated untruths. This is evidenced in part by the fact that, when the prompter isn’t working, small nuggets of actual honesty accidentally appear.

    So the question we all need ask ourselves — and that the GOP members of Congress have to ask THEMselves — is, what is so big that it must be covered by so many lies? And, more to the point, how can they, since they know the lies exist, do to counter them.

  • writeblock

    I honestly think he scored points. No follow-ups were allowed–so he had the last word on each issue. Nevertheless the GOP scored points as well by the sheer fact that he was there. Which means he’s actually not as unrealistic as he seemed judging by the SOTU address. He knows he’s getting killed in the polls. He knows what Massachusetts really means. He knows the tea parties are a profound threat. So he’s acknowledging conservative power. He may yet pull a Clinton and move to the right after 2010.

  • bk

    And it took place 10 (calendar) days after the election. Wasn’t that how long the certification was supposed to take or was it 10 working days?

  • bk

    as to whether the GOP was going to challenge the eligibility of Kirk to continue voting after the election. Remember all the talk about how after the election Kirk should be ineligible to vote whether Brown was seated yet or not?

  • nivlem

    They function on ideology not reality. They have shown repeatedly that they
    will deny reality because they will believe they are in the right.

    They will do anything they can to accomplish their goals. And they get away
    with it because they have a willing press.

    I hope you are right. It would be logical from our standpoint, but I don’t believe they function on logic. Obama is a frontman and will do what ever
    the puppetiers behind him tell him. That is why he so often does not do it well. His heart is just not in it.

  • http://slcliberty.blogivists.com randy streu

    I think we are in agreement about what the reality is. But your final statements keep reading as though you believe Obama’s PERCEPTION of reality can actually change it.

    Example: “I hope you are right. It would be logical from our standpoint, but I don?t believe they function on logic. ”

    It doesn’t matter whether they see themselves as acting from strength OR weakness; the result is the same. The question is simply one of how long they will persevere.

  • nivlem

    till November, I think….then we will see.

    I don’t believe Obama’s” PERCEPTION of reality” can actually change reality, I do predict that the Democrats and the media will endeavor to put forth a “perception of reality” that he is actually reaching out, and the Repblicans are rejecting him. This pressurei could potentially change a vote or two.

    It is already working on this blog with the topic of this post.

    If he truly wanted to reach out to Republicans, why did he blast them in his
    SOTU address. A person who really wanted to change the direction, would not slam his opponent on national TV during his biggest address to the nation. He would not then turn around two days later and attend their “retreat” to beg for anything. This was a plan by the
    White House to win and pressure Republicans to vote with his agenda.

  • http://slcliberty.blogivists.com randy streu

    Neil, and I think you can see this if you read PAST the topic, would appear to believe, correctly, that most of thoise on the Right will not see this as a reason for them to change their votes.

  • nivlem

    to change their vote in the Senate and they are home free. You are right most will not see it as a reason to change their votes, but there are some
    that will see him “as coming to beg” and they will be moved not to be seen as an “obstuctionist”.
    The desire to be liked by the media and the public is strong. The Democrats
    know this and this is why they sent Obama to the Republican Retreat. They don’t need to convince the masses. Only on few.

  • rfpzzzzz

    Obama cannot escape the fact that his problems have been with Dems and a large part of the country does not support his stimulus or health care ideas, his KSM trial ideas , cap and trade ideas and his waste and borrowing. The GOP is essentially on the side of what the people are saying. Granted there is no charismatic GOP leader or much in the way of what they will actually do if given a chance to govern again but right now a lot of people want Obama and Pelosi/Reid stopped. Keep coming back , Obama, I bet it gets more interesting.

  • keep2theright

    Totally — He needs US, not the other way around. A guy who had a filibuster-proof majority and still had to bribe senators to get votes has no “hand” — he needs to try to spread the blame around at the very least.

    Still — his threat that (R)s need to “be careful” how they voted came off like a petulant kid who got his lunch money taken.

    Just think: now he and the Dems are calling the healthcare bill “imperfect”, etc. etc. — BUT IF IT WASN’T FOR THE TOWNHALLS AND TEA PARTIES, IT WOULD HAVE PASSED!!

    Check out “Gore Lied”, “Don’t Blame Me, I Voted For The American” and other great stickers and gear at www.keep2theright.com

  • http://slcliberty.blogivists.com randy streu

    we’re not seeing ANY of the Republicans lining up to take his side here. And I don’t think we will.

  • SoFiMil

    .

  • SoFiMil

    Because once you’re gone, everything’s gone.

  • immortal_fish

    I can play nice with family, friends, and coworkers. But only so far.

    These people have made it clear that they are the ENEMY. Their ideology has POISONED our country. They labor to take our liberty AWAY from us.

    Anyone can make nice and shake hands. But where the rubber meets the road, these people cannot and should not be trusted. We cannot afford to risk working with them. And we must convince our leaders of this undeniable fact.

    This would be meeting them on THEIR TERMS. Playing the game by THEIR RULES. They have refused to work with us for YEARS. And we should refuse to work with them now.

    In his own words… HE WON. Let him continue to struggle with Cash For Cloture.

  • immortal_fish

    No.

    Now is NOT the time to lose faith. You have reasons aplenty to BELIEVE.

    The Dems and the lame stream media have worked hard to convince the nation that the tea party movement is a right wing movement… AT THEIR PERIL. This is obvious given recent election results, even the narrowly lost NY-23.

    My own state elected a Republican Senator. The seat held by Teddy Kennedy for half his life now belongs to US.

    We are making very strong gains. Please do not lose faith. The tide has only started to turn.

    Remember — While the other side always circles the wagons under any circumstance, we hold our our own ACCOUNTABLE for what they do. When they win, it’s the end. When we win, it’s the beginning.

    Scott Brown has yet to be seated and already I distrust him. Not for anything he’s done, but because that’s MY JOB as a voter. And I plan to help keep him on track. OUR track. That’s the way our side rolls.

    Please believe.

  • teresakoch

    Here are a few posts from Cynthia Yockey’s blog:

    http://www.aconservativelesbian.com/2009/02/12/the-chilling-explanation-of-why-obama-is-cool/

    http://www.aconservativelesbian.com/2009/02/10/understanding-obama/

    And how to combat this:

    http://www.aconservativelesbian.com/2009/02/17/why-ridicule-is-obamas-kryptonite/

    We need to realize that NOTHING this man says can be taken as the truth, and NO promises that he makes can be counted on. We must not allow ourselves to “play nice”, because it will come around and bite us later.

    We also need to make sure that our Republican congresscritters are made aware of this personality disorder and how to combat it.

  • archer52

    Letting Obama speak is often like letting Biden speak. Stand back, get out a recorder and wait, something good is bound to happen. With Biden it is a matter of him having a flashing sign over his head going “I’m stupid, I’m stupid” with an arrow pointing down.

    Obama is a little different. He can’t stop talking about himself and his arrogance is stunning. He said what us “little people” had to hear to we could understand him. We are wrong of course he’s not a communist, or so he says. But HOW he said it is the greatest sound bite we might get. Here is my post.

    http://truthandcommonsense.com/2010/01/29/hotair-gets-queasy-over-obama-not-falling-down-at-the-republican-retreat/

    Here is the part dealing with the comment-

    In addition he now put in play the whole ?Obama?s a commie? fear by his off-handed remarked about the healthcare plan being a Bolshevik plot.

    ?The money line about health care: ?If you were to listen to the debate and, frankly, how some of you went after this bill, you?d think that this thing was some Bolshevik plot.? To which I say: Nonsense.?

    Hey if it walks like a duck, wearing a red arm band and waves a little red book around.. well… we’ll see.

    Obama’s one moment of frustration about how he is being carved up by Beck, Limbaugh and the rest is a perfect set up for future video and commercials. Imagine that line spoken with comparisons done between his actions and the actions of past communists governments. A gift that will keep on giving.

    Besides, from the clips I saw he just didn’t look confident, happy or comfortable. The problem is the defeatist attitude of the establishment republicans who frankly are afraid of their own shadows.

  • loganyung

    It seems that Obama has set himself up to be played in the court of public opinion. He has gone on record saying that he wants Republican cooperation. It will be difficult for him to complain if the terms aren’t completely to his liking.

    I think that the Republicans should offer some very small, non dangerous, portion of the health care bill (e.g. Simple Cafeteria Plans for Small Businesses), and agree to put it forward, but, only if he agrees to push selling insurance across state lines. This should be made very public.

    “We are very happy that the President has agreed to work together on health care, but, the public has loudly voiced their desire to see this solved one issue at a time, and in a way that doesn’t kill jobs. We will agree to help President Obama pass the Simple Cafeteria Plans portion of his health care bill if he will help pass the popular initiative to allow health insurance to be sold across state borders. We expect that President Obama will act in good faith, and make this a clean bill without trying to enter unrelated provisions. We look forward to working with the President.”

  • DirtyDave

    Last year he met with Republicans and just told them “I won” when they didn’t like what he was proposing. End of discussion for all intents and purposes. Their job was to just get in line.

    Now he is engaging them. It’s still all arrogance, but he now staring to sweat. He has a super majorities in the House and Senate and he still can’t get anything done. We have never had a leader this pathetic and that is a huge advantage the Republicans. They can start running circles around him, start proposing conservative solutions. He seems to have to start listening to them. It’s a heck of a card to play. I just hope the Republican realize it and start to play it.

    It’s also time to start poking fun at our President. He’s a goof with a thin skin. Time to get the needles out and make the most of it. In respectful manner, of course.

  • sybilll

    Watching it live (I’m iced in), I thought Yes, he is exposing himself on so many failures. C-span promise; keeping your insurance/doctor promise; not increasing the deficit *one thin dime* promise; unable to get his own majority to pass the Utopian public option or single payer; conceding to (R) ideas on clean coal & nuclear; I was elated. Then, I flip to MSDNC hoping to snicker, and they are ecstatic. Because they framed it that way. And, so did the rest of the media, and lefty websites. If you don’t think that a) this will be quickly overshadowed by his next misstep, and b) that this was not orchestrated, we are not on the same page.
    I saw it as an abstract failure, but, the media won’t allow me to think that. Their pre-packaged notion that he rode in on a cloud, and cleaned the clocks of numb skull Republicans simply did not work on me.

  • audax

    ….best thing that coud happen to conservative-nouns between now and Nov 2012

  • rbdwiggins

    barely reduced the GOP’s mile-wide-yellow-streak.

  • http://vbushmills.blogtownhall.com/ vassar

    …but the good news is we’ll know very shortly.

    You are right that OB1 approached the GOP House membership from a position weakness, butr that is from a third party perspective. No better than 50/50 odds he sees it that way.

    His talk to them was filled with subtle dares and even more subtle threats. If he could’ve given them the finger, he would have.

    It was a very unsettling meeting from my perspective, but again, the answer will be known very shortly, within 30 days.

    I hope you’re right.

  • http://vbushmills.blogtownhall.com/ vassar

    I failed to mention that in my view there was no extended hand of comity, or cooperation in any way…other than the standard my way or the highway variety…

    and GOP members would be wise to always keep this in mind

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    He can tell himself what he wants, but we know the truth.

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    Not at all. :-)

  • http://vbushmills.blogtownhall.com/ vassar

    …because while he extends one hand in mock friendship..the other is behind his back…what clenched fist, holding a mace, a fistful of exec orders?

    My only point is he is still very dangerous, can’t be trusted and you know what they about wounded beasts.

    My take from a few of the Members they may have accepted his outstretched paw…nothing from what you wrote.

    Gotta drive to Dulles

    Cheers

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    …which is to help take the shine off of this clown by mocking him.

    Just make fun of the twerp.

  • http://slcliberty.blogivists.com randy streu

    nt.

  • gumbyandpokey

    The morning news shows today were raving about Obama’s appearance at that GOP retreat. Why even give the guy a chance for good publicity? The media was actually hitting him pretty hard during the health care debate, but now the GOP (of course) let him get momentum. There has been no upside for the Republicans. It’s pretty obvious the public wants to like Obama and he had to be kept down but they let him use his natural charisma, and charisma is not exactly flowing from our guys. If the November elections end up disappointing us, we can look back on this decision (and especially letting it be televised).