President Obama Phones New GOP Senators and House Members
Posted: November 11, 2010 Filed under: Surreality, Team Obama, WE TOLD THEM SO | Tags: Barack Obama, David Axelrod, GOP outreach, John Boehner 46 Comments
If you were wondering what President Obama has been up to during off-hours during his trip to Asia, wonder no longer. The New York Daily News reports that
President Obama has reached out to most of the incoming GOP lawmakers victorious on Nov. 2, telephoning many of them while abroad traveling to meetings in Asia.
“It’s a step in the right direction,” said Speaker-in-waiting John Boehner’s press secretary Michael Steel.
[….]
the President has also spoken to many of the incoming GOP House committee chairmen, including Rep. Pete King (R-L.I.), who will take the gavel of the Homeland Security Committee.
The same Peter King who recently said that George W. Bush “should get a medal” for approving waterboarding?
“There was no harm done,” King said Wednesday, referring to the waterboarding of alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohmammed, who was subjected to simulated drowning 183 times in March of 2003. “In the big picture, to hold someone’s head underwater, the chance of permanent damage is minimal and the rewards are great.”
The Daily News did not report whether President Obama called new Democratic Senate and House members.
In other new of White House weakness, Sam Stein reports that The President and his top advisers had no warning about the release of the draft report of the Catfood Commission chairmen yesterday. In fact David Axelrod had to look up the report on-line.
Hours after the commission’s two chairs — former Sen. Alan Simpson and former White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles — unveiled their 50-page list of deficit reduction recommendations, White House Senior Adviser David Axelrod admitted that he had to find a copy of the report on the Internet.
“I heard at noon that those guys were going to hold a press conference at 1 PM,” Axelrod told The Huffington Post. “And I pulled off the Internet the coverage of it.”
Asked if he was bothered by the lack of warning, Axelrod replied: “I think they set out to be an independent commission and they are being independent. But we will let them complete their work and we will take a look at what they’ve done. Maybe they will get consensus around some of these ideas, maybe they won’t. We will take a look at it.”
Apparently I spoke too soon when I suggested Axelrod is running the Obama administration. Perhaps John Boehner is now in charge?
This is an open thread.
peej
Carissa
ecocatwoman
mablue2
Mama Lopez
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
Nancy Pelosi goes off the reservation, then denies it.
http://www.rollcall.com/news/-200437-1.html
Speaker Nancy Pelosi told Democratic leaders Wednesday afternoon that President Barack Obama has to be “perfect” to win a second term, several senior Democratic aides told Roll Call.
Pelosi told leaders on a conference call that Obama will have problems running for re-election because of the loss of governorships in Ohio, Pennsylvania and other states, several aides said. The soon-to-be-ex-Speaker also said House Democrats have many opportunities to take back 25 House seats and win back the majority, aides said.
According to one aide, Pelosi also said she wasn’t sure whether the White House is prepared to deal with a Republican House. A leadership aide denied that Pelosi made such a statement.
I think Nancy’s a little miffed that every one wants to throw her to the wolves. They’re both endangered species, but my money is on the wolves, still.
LOL!
Obama still believes that he did it himself. Nancy knows better and she is looking at the same map I’m looking at. The Midwest is gone. Obama can’t win. I think Nancy is being generous about Obama needing to be “perfect” to win, she knows Obama is a one termer. Pelosi is trying to fix the damage she’s caused, but of course she’ll never admit that she engineered her own and her party’s demise.
So I guess Nancy no longer thinks Obama is a gift from God?
“Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?” or Nancy Pelosi?
Just as a side note on an open thread, if you have noticed the big blue squares to the right, they indicate a link to the new facebook page for the blog and there’s an email down there too!!!! You can check us out and contact us!
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend? I never cared for that saying, but I can’t help to feel satisfaction when I read:
feels like the north v the south doesn’t it?
Yup. I may sound way off because after all I’m an immigrant. But it’s my view that the issues that the North and the South went to war for, were not resolved with the Civil War. After I studied that awful war, I’m of the opinion that the real issues the country fought about were first, economic, and second the power to control Washington. Freeing the slaves was a side show. The counting of those slaves to get more representation in Washington is what mattered. But when the Missouri Compromise fell apart, war was inevitable. The Civil War ended, but I believe that the anger and distrust towards Washington never ended in the South. The 60s were a reminder of who lost the war, when the Civil Rights was passed. So here we are, still quarreling over issues that are deep in the subconscious of the people in the South.
It also reflects the difference between a rural society and an essentially urban one. I don’t disagree at all. The one war that we never really worked towards winning hearts and minds and the peace was that one.
The urban vs. rural differences can be worked out when the two talk it out. We see how rural NY is much more conservative than the NYC, but the distrust between the South and Washington feels like it’s unresolvable. Because beyond the distrust, there’s an animosity that’s almost irrational. That’s why I think it’s in the deep subconscious.
It’s like a cold war.
When I share these thoughts with the people in the North, they dismiss it, but when I say the same thing to a Southerner, they look at me with agreement. I think the Northerners are oblivious of what is going on underneath. The Northerners think it’s raycism, but I think the AA received the anger that had no place to go. It’s almost like when parents abuse their children because of a rage that has nothing to do with the kids, but their lives.
The biggest shock of my life was when I found out that Mississippi doesn’t celebrate Memorial Day because it’s a Yankee holiday. It’s about control and power and who decides what every one’s life is about. They are still weird about it if you got out to the hinterland. It’s an uneasy peace in a lot of places and the rage against black Americans is just a piece of it. The rich and powerful continually pit poor white people and poor black people against each other.
Years ago, when my customer base was primarily the southern states, I actually had a client in Louisville who talked about “Mr. Lincoln’s War”. Yep, they never forgot or forgave.
I’m not an admirer of Lincoln. I think he could have resolved the issue without war, but like Obama, he was not experienced enough to deal with such an explosive issue. The war crimes committed in the South by Sherman were horrible. The burning of Atlanta was an attack against civilians who were caught in the middle. Lincoln had the ability to say pretty words too.
They didn’t do much better with reconstruction either and they didn’t do right by African Americans. The carpet baggers and folks like the Remingtons found out they could make money from the war machine and it was straight to hell from there on out.
“War is hell” — Sherman
Sherman made sure war was hell.
How do you resolve prejudice? You can’t, you just can hope it dissipates over time as people are integrated and are forced to confront their fears of “other people who might not look or think like them.”
Well, if you look at my kids, it dissolves itself with exposure to the “other” and full inclusion of the “other”. That’s why civil rights laws are necessary. That’s also why protection of the minority is an essential part of the constitution.
Which is where integration should have come in. Unfortunately warring for years took its toll on the economics and very little of what should have been done occurred. People in the South were allowed to continue to their bigotry for over 10 decades. I often find it interesting that people argue affirmative action doesn’t work. In the 1970s there were still segregated schools in the south. We’re talking about just a couple of decades to eradicate the disparities of over a hundred years.
but bigotry ain’t just a southern thing … when they started integrating schools in Omaha Nebraska people were flying to the small towns surrounding Omaha too. In the south, you KNOW who the real bigots are because they are so out there. It’s more subtle up north; it’s still there.
Oh absolutely. Unfortunately, people fear different and ending those fears take time and exposure.
Northerners are more than aware of the animosity that Southerners have towards us. We just don’t care. The hatred is irrational and they’ve done their darned best to rewrite history. The little digs like Jackson-Lee day on Martin Luther King day are childish. The idea that they’ll “rise again” and win a war that was fought over 100 years ago is absurd. The idea that the war was not over slavery was and continues to be revisionist. Oh they can pretty it up and call it states rights but it was about a states right to determine ownership of individuals for other individuals financial benefit.
Oh, slavery and racism is part and parcel of the deal, no doubt about that at all. But that’s a simplification and it’s the outrageous in your face part of the hostility. It’s a simplification to say that’s it all of it though. The rural vs. urban thing is also in there and some other stuff. It is about power and money and the loss of it … it’s also about how you treat people when they’ve lost. Slavery was never a high ground.
“The peculiar institution” would have in the end been resolved by the Southerners. The whole world had moved on. Latin America, under the Spanish, had abolished slavery decades before. The British had too. The U.S. was refusing to abolish what could not be sustained. The South would have suffered the economic hardship once the slaves were freed, but because of Lincoln’s inability to deal with a difficult issue, and choosing war, the Southerners never owned their mistake and the consequences of slavery. So now, we all pay for Lincoln’s war. The AA needed economic, moral and psychological help when the war ended to integrate them into our community. So here we are more than 100 years after the war ended still dealing with the effects of slavery.
Nobody’s dignity was restored and the area was left to rapacious profit mongers. I’m not sure the intent was to actually heal any one. I think the fact that so much faith was broke with former slaves was just one symbol of that. They were promised retribution for slavery. The country had plenty of land for that. The process of healing the wounds never really occurred because the south was opened for another type of exploitation. It was occupied.
It seemed that occupation and exploitation was all that was known. Look at the wars with the Tribal Nations in the early 1800s. It was a zero sum game. PERIOD.
Resolved how? The monied interests made their money off the backs of unpaid labor. They actually were “breeding” slaves here so I don’t see how other countries dealt with slavery necessarily leads to how we deal with it here. I mean the rest of the developed world has health care for it’s citizenry. Here? Not so much. So what occurs elsewhere isn’t necessarily analogous to here.
I do agree though that we are still dealing with the effects of the war over a century after the fact.
How about how PEOPLE were treated by them?
Frankly, I have no time for mollycoddling bigotry. There are people in the South who refuse to even admit that slavery had anything to do with the war. There are people who have bumper stickers declaring they’ll rise again. They celebrate Confederate soldiers on Martin Luther King day. Their behavior is revisionist and delusional. You can’t deal with irrational, not and have expectations. Delusional people rarely respond to rational arguments.
Yes, that’s true. The KKK is still alive in places and there are people like that. But the complexities of the Tea Party are just as weird as the complexities of the south. I mean, look at Arizona. They refused to accept MLK day. What’s that about? They had nothing to do with the civil war. Out and out racism is a lot more complex than that.
The common thread I see is manipulation and fear mongering
You have people screaming socialist,muslim, and all manner of factual inaccuracies and people are buying into it and repeating it.
It certainly doesn’t help that the Democrats have done little to help the situation by being so darn timid at undoing a decade’s worth of damage and in some instances continuing it.
yes, exactly. The moneyed groups want people to fear the very people that have similar interests and create cosmetic differences to stop them from aligning and realizing they do have common interests.
The KKK began in Indiana–a northern state. We had our racial problems in Boston in the ’60s and ’70s too. Rascism isn’t just a Southern thing, but it was more out in the open there. It was also codified in the legal system, which was a huge problem. Keeping people from voting was a strategy that continued for 100 years after the Civil War.
What I find interesting is how the monied interests were able to manipulate the majority of Southerners that didn’t own slaves. They do the same thing today with the tax issue for the wealthy. For some reason a lot of people seem to believe they’d rather not tax the well off on the hopes that someday they will be the well off.
Economic disparities still exist between the North and the South but a lot of them exist because the people here don’t want or aren’t anxious to make the investment in education or move forward. They’d much rather harp on the mean, horrible Northerners who ironically enough subsidize many of them in terms of federal dollars.
Ultimately it is a class issue. They find ways to split the poor. There’s no geographic dimension to that. If they can find a way to split folks from their own self interests they will find it.
cwaltz, the Northerners can ignore the animosity, but it’s like burying the head in the sand. We are divided as a country because of unresolved political issues that go back to the Civil War. It comes out as distrust of the federal government in Washington, but if one looks underneath, it’s the anger that goes back to the Civil War.
It’s why that horrid southern strategy worked. The power structure realizes this and they continue to play it out.
The war has been addressed. They don’t like how it was resolved. Too bad. I’m certainly not going to apologize because they are no longer allowed to derive money off the backs of others and they were forced to integrate. It’s a darn shame that it took Washington to force them to do the right thing almost a century after the fact.
The issue will be addressed one way or another. RR played Iago (Shakspeare Othello character) by using the Southern anger and direct it towards a group that was a victim already. It’s easy to manipulate a population that’s angry and has no way to blow steam. That’s where the Southerners have been. We can all agree that they brought it on themselves, but unless they see it, we can’t move forward.
RR didn’t just manipulate Southerners, lots of Reagan Dems came from the North, too. Southern whites have been grossly overrepresented in the political process for most of our history. The 3/5 Compromise, the Electoral
College, then Jim Crow, literacy tests, poll taxes, vote suppression and intimidation. If they can’t see this and are still upset and wanting us to validate their delusions about a war they started by attacking us 150 years ago, what can
we do about it, really?
As long as the South doesn’t resolve its anger and distrust of the federal government in Washington (the Yankees), we’ll remain divided. We’re talking past each other. Keeping taxes low for the elite works for rich, but we all suffer. The elite has found a way to manipulate the angry South.
Good night.
It’s not just the South, though. Here in MA, communities try to justify busing riots where adults attacked little kids trying to go to school. Instead of “states’ rights,” they say “local control.” Instead of “outside agitators” it’s “fancy judges with kids in private schools.” “We don’t like being pushed around” is pretty much the same. People can never face up to reality when they do awful things, and they always try to put a lovely high falutin’ moral gloss over it. Sure, the elites want to manipulate everyone’s anger, but as long
as people are determined to cling to their delusions, we can’t really make anyone “see.” We can try to redirect displaced anger into legitimate and productive channels, but there’s a limit to what can be done if it includes validating illegitimate anger, because that’s a whole other ball of divisiveness.
Thanks Dak. It’s been a great discussion of a difficult issue. As an outsider, I have a different perspective. When I told a Northerner that I wasn’t impressed by Lincoln, he almost fainted. He’s revered. I shock many with my view that Lincoln was an incompetent who went into war so easily to make his point, and in the process got 620,000 Americans killed, more than the 420,000 soldiers killed in WW2. Considering the U.S. population was smaller, that’s a horrible toll.
Good night.
This was an interesting discussion. I’m sorry I missed it.
DK, loved your turn of phrase here: